


Warm bodies and warmer hearts

by PinkFluffyBabboonButt



Category: Warm Bodies (2013)
Genre: AU where Nora is taken by R instead of Julie, Corpses, F/M, I just digged Analeigh Tipton more, Zombies, bonies - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29878098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkFluffyBabboonButt/pseuds/PinkFluffyBabboonButt
Summary: When watching the movie I just liked Analeigh Tipton's character more, and began to wonder *obsess* over how things might've gone if she were to be the heroine.
Relationships: R (Warm Bodies)/ Nora Greene





	Warm bodies and warmer hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Just a warning. Since I didn't even know that the movie was based on a book, a lot of stuff in this fic is completely made up and might differ wildly form how things are in the book. I hope whoever reads this can keep that in mind. Maybe some time in future I might get back to this fic and fix things to match up more with the book, but for now this is all I can give. Hope you enjoy it ^^!

“Hello and thank you for your service today,” a slightly off voice came from the screen as Nora, Julie and Perry gathered around it with the others. “In the eight years since this plague destroyed our world...”

“Do you think we’re getting this stuff for the cure?” Julie turned and asked Perry. Nora kept looking at the screen, not letting her best friend’s hopefulness distract her. Julie and Perry had these conversations all the time. Honestly, Nora wasn’t even sure if Julie was hopeful for the future, or just cynical towards her father.

“No one believes in a cure anymore, Jules,” Perry replied in his usual pessimistic manner. Ever since the incident Perry had begun to sound more and more like Colonel Grigio. Julie never talked about it but Nora knew she was concerned for Perry.

“...They are uncaring, unfeeling, incapable of remorse,” Julie’s father continued on the screen.

“Sounds like anyone you know, Dad?” Julie sarcastically remarked back at the face staring at them from the TV.

Once the pep talk tape was over Nora finally broke her silence. “U-S-A! U-S-A!” she whispered to Julie who just rolled her eyes in frustration.

It’s not that either Nora or Julie hated what they are doing now, but they hated the hopelessness Colonel Grigio and Perry portrayed all the time. Specially Nora. For Julie it’s more about her freedom. Ever since Colonel Grigio lost his wife, and Julie her mother, life had gotten a lot more restricted for her, and she didn’t like it or even understand why life had to be the way it was. For Nora, as someone with avid interest in medicine, she understood why they had to do what they have to do, but she hated that they were slowly giving up on the cure. After Nora had lost her parents all she could ever think of was the cure. She didn’t want any other child to have to go through what she, Perry and Julie had to when their parents where shot in the head right in front of their eyes.

As the group exited the base a graffiti outside of the base caught Nora’s eyes.

****WELCOME TO THE DEAD ZONE** **

****LOOK ALIVE OUT THERE!!!!** **

****

“Sweet,” Nora thoughts to herself. As if their already nerve wrecking mission wasn’t bad enough without these weird ominous wannabe funny warnings. Who had written it anyway? Nora couldn’t believe there were still people alive outside of the base. She knew there were a lot when it all started. Many thought they could fend for themselves outside of the base, but as far as Nora knew, by now many of them had come to seek shelter at the base, or gotten wiped out by the corpses.

Nora and rest of the scouts followed Perry quietly through the rubble and ruins of what once was their home city. The sight of the city horrified Nora. In her memories everything was so beautiful, so perfect, but with each scouting mission those pleasant memories faded away a little more and became replaced by the horrid sights around them now.

The group carefully made their way, turning anything and everything over to make sure no corpses could surprise them, and also in hopes they might find something useful. They did find a couple broken phones and an abandoned backpack. However, their prize finding ended up being a clinic.

They entered the abandoned building and to their pleasant surprise the place wasn’t turned upside down or still today guarded by a complicated security system requiring the scouts to blast through, increasing their chances of being caught by the corpses.

Despite the clinic feeling like a goldmine the scouts knew better than to rush headfirst into it’s corridors. If it was this easy for them to enter, it should be this easy for the corpses to enter too. Stray humans, as the earlier graffiti suggested, were a possibility too. They had gone over examples in their training, where stray human refused to come to the shelter and refused to share any provisions they found with the people who were living at the base. The fights could get uglier with the living as it took more determination to kill them than it did to kill an already dead corpse.

Finally, they entered a lab room. Nora spotted the equipment there and realized it must be where they dealt with taking and managing blood samples. There were empty tubes lined up on the counters tidily according to their colors and lengths. Next to them were unopened packets of needles, catheters, plastic bags, and a lot of other equipment Nora couldn’t quite remember the purpose of but knew she had read about.

As Nora and the others began to swipe whatever they could manage into their backpacks she heard Perry’s annoyed voice somewhere in the background. He was getting mad at someone, again. Lately, that had been happening a lot more often too.

“Hey, Bart you’re gonna help out or what?”

“No dice, I’m almost at level five.”

Perry didn’t reply, but even in his silence he manage to radiate enough annoyance for Nora to feel it in her bones. She began to pack things in her bag faster, just to seem more efficient than she already was.

Suddenly a voice distracted her from her mission. “Did you hear that?”

“I did,” Julie said. “We should bail.”

“We can’t just bail, we have orders,” Perry protested. “You have any idea how much medicine the city goes through a month?”

Before Nora could reply Julie and Perry managed to get themselves into another one of their recent micro-arguments. Nora saw best not to interrupt and went back to collecting whatever supplies and medicine she could get her hands on. “Oh, here guys, take some Prozac. That’ll cheer you up,” she tried to joke to make the mood lighter. It didn’t help, but hey, at least she’d tried. As she turned back to her task another, much louder, clang sounded from the corridor startling Nora even more. “I told you I heard something!”

Julie immediately cocked her gun and in a more demanding voice appealed to Perry, “Per, let’s bail.”

To Nora’s disappointment he refused and began to approach the door leading to the corridor from where the noise had come. However, before Perry was anywhere near the door a horde of corpses burst through it.

There wasn’t time to do anything but get shooting. Even though Nora had been smart enough to drop the backpack she’d been filling when the second clang had rang through the room and cock her gun too, she still didn’t feel ready for the amount of corpses that filed into the room.

Compared to the others Nora, Julie and Perry were at a disadvantage as they had been scouring the counters and the cabinets in the centre of the room. Nora couldn’t just back to a wall to make sure the corpses had one less direction to surprise attack her from. As Nora swung around frantically to take down as many corpses as possible from the corner of her eye she noticed someone climbing onto the counter. “Good,” she thought to herself. It would be easier to target the corpses from there. She considered doing that too, yet she did not want to let her guard down even for the few second that it would take her to climb up.

Lucky for them, and unfortunate for a lot of their fellow scouts, the corpses were either taken down or busy eating so it was easier for them to target the few stray ones that were still trying to get their own share of the human meat. Having finally gotten a short breather Nora had the chance to evaluate their situation a little better. She couldn’t bail like the others had because if she tried to make her way to the door she was bound to alert a corpse to come after her. Instead Nora noticed that there was enough space under the counter for her to hide in she would be covered in three directions making it easier for her to target the corpses, but harder for them to target her. Looking around her to make sure no one notices her, Nora slid under the counter and pulled her knees to her chest trying to press herself against the drawers as much as possible.

From her hiding place she had the perfect view of the countertop Perry was standing on. Although, on a normal day Nora couldn’t understand why Julie was so into Perry, watching him at that moment made Nora almost see what Julie saw in him. The way he stood there looking cool and shooting up corpses as if he was the hero of a zombie apocalypse movie - well, maybe he was - looked cool in a very Perry way.

Despite the craziness of the situation Nora couldn’t help but sit back and enjoy the sight in front of her as if she was watching TV. Perry shoots one corpse, and then another, and a third one. All of them square in the head. However, as cool as it looked Nora couldn’t help the pang of guilt in her heart. Although Colonel Grigio said in his tape that they were dead, uncaring and unfeeling, in Nora’s opinion the corpses felt alive. What dead being could feel hunger. Or anger. Like the corpse that was about to lunge at Perry.

About to lunge at Perry? Nora broke out from her thoughts and registered what was happening. Perry had a missed a shot hitting a corpse in the arm angering it so much it had lunged at him.

“Ugh!” Perry groaned as he hit the corner of the counter top when the corpse pulling him down by his legs.

“Perry!” Nora heard Julie cry. She knew it was stupid to try and help Perry at this point, but there was no helping it. Between Julie and her she had a better chance at helping Perry, also between the two of them Nora knew Julie would drop her guards for Perry, while she herself wouldn’t.

“I got this!” Nora shot out of her hide and aimed her gun at the corpse. “Stay focused Julie!” she demanded.

Nora pulled the trigger expecting the corpse’s head to burst like a watermelon, but nothing happened. She was out of bullets. Cursing under her breath Nora quickly scanned around for anything to use as a weapon, wishing upon anything that was listening to her that Perry would manage to struggle against the corpse just a few more seconds.

Noticing her earlier abandoned bag she scrambled towards it. Picking it up she chucked it against the corpse’s back with all her might. To Perry’s misfortune the corpse didn’t seem to care. Nora quickly reached for the glass erlenmeyers on the counter and chucked one at the corpse too.

“Hey, zombie dude! Over here!” she shouted at the zombie. She wasn’t sure which one got his attention her shout or the erlenmeyer, either way, the corpse finally let go of Perry and turned to see the offender who had the nerve to ruin his meal.

“Nora!” Julie’s voice came from somewhere outside of Nora’s sight of focus that was now pinpointed at the corpse’s angry face.

“Take Perry and run Julie! He’s hurt!”

Julie hesitated for a moment but seeing her boyfriend groan on the floor in pain made her snap out of it and rush to him immediately.

Meanwhile, Nora noticed a cutting knife on the counter and threw it at the corpse in vain. The wretched thing just lodged into his chest as he kept moving towards her. She tried to reach for another erlenmeyer in order to slow down the corpse, but the corpse was quicker and had her pinned against the counter his arms holding to the sides so she couldn’t escape. In her panic, Nora froze to the spot unable to think or do anything that could save her. She felt tears prickling in the corners of her eyes. The corpse began to lean towards her, his teeth bared out menacingly. To Nora’s surprise, however, the closer he got to her face the more his own face began to relax, if she hadn’t been so panicked herself she could’ve seen his dead pearly white eyes fill with something akin to curiosity.

Holding her breath Nora looked away, not wanting to face the harbinger of her death. She didn’t want her last memory to be a set of gnarly teeth about to bite into her. Closing her eyes Nora began to count the seconds in her head. For what felt like an eternity Nora stood frozen, upset at her demise and inability to even move a finger to protect herself. An eternity that ended with a sticky feeling against her cheek instead of the sharp pain of a bite.

“N- No-ra,” came a slow whisper from the corpse.

Both surprised and terrified at once, Nora turned to look at the corpse only to find his face still uncomfortably close to hers. She felt his hand slowly slide down her face to her neck as he tried to utter something else through labored breaths.

“S- s- safe,” he whispered again. He now took a hold of her arms and pulled her with him, “Come.”

“What?” Nora managed to finally say. Even more afraid of what was going to happen next. She tried to resist, but her limp legs gave away letting the corpse drag her behind him easily.

*

R had no idea why he’d taken her with them. None of the others would have done that. They wouldn’t even have let things escalate to that point. Curse that watch he stopped to admire. If he’d just bit into that Perry guy perhaps the woman would have given up on trying to save him. Now R was hungry and he had brought a live human back with him like it was some pet. On top of all that, he was worrying less about his own hunger and more about how it might affect the woman, or how long it would take for the others to notice she wasn’t one of them.

As they walked back to the airport R had to keep dragging the woman, Nora, after him. Every few meters she stopped on her tracks, looking around her like a terrified deer. At this rate despite the blood he’d put on her they’ll get caught. She wasn’t being subtle enough. Why did he have to be the weird one who brings alive people back home with him for no reason?

After a few more tugs the Nora finally got the gist of it and began to slowly walk next to him, still occasionally glancing around to look at the others like him. R guided her through the customs, up the escalators, and across the field to his airplane. All through the journey Nora followed him, visibly tense. R wanted to tell her not to be scared. He wouldn’t hurt her, but he knew it wouldn’t help. Just a while ago he was about to eat her friend up and had cornered her like a wild animal. Besides, he wasn’t sure himself either if he actually wouldn’t hurt her. In case she got too comfortable and tried to attack him, he would have no other choice but to hurt her in return even though he didn’t enjoy it much.

“H- home,” he said, as they entered through the airplane door.

He waited for Nora to say something or react somehow but she remained quiet. After a moment of awkward silence R tried to push past her to show the way. Nora recoiled away from him, her face twisted in fear.

“Come,” he beckoned her to follow him, hoping she wouldn’t throw something at her head again.

Nora followed him quietly to the economy seats. A lot of the seats, specially in the front part of the section had been taken out and replaced by stack and mountains of various things R had collected over the past eight years.

“Sit,” R nodded his head rigidly toward one of the remaining seats. Nora did as she was told. She chose a window seat to get as far from him as possible yet still maintained eye contact. As if she was afraid he would attack her the moment she looked away. R felt bad for her and wanted to comfort her somehow. To ease her discomfort he sat down on one of the seats across the isle and pulled his hair away from his face, hoping a neater appearance would make her trust him a bit more.

He then turned to Nora. “Not... eat...” he said, and knowing his communication skills weren’t what they once used to be, he clenched his teeth a few times and shook his head to try and express his words.

At first a small chuckle escaped Nora getting R’s hopes high, however just as soon that chuckle dragged into a choked sob and looking away from him Nora began to cry in a muffled tone. R felt bad for her. “Keep... you... safe...” he tried again, but in vain. Nora’s sobs just grew louder and she kept looking away from him as if she hoped not acknowledging the monster would make it go away. Upset, R got up and slowly made his way out of the plane, to let Nora have some space and get her thoughts sorted. Besides he was still hungry and hoped that there was still some food left for him in that lab.

When he got to the lab to his pleasant surprise there were still a few bodies left half eaten. He’d feared that if the others hadn’t finished them off then at least the boneys would have. As a cherry on top he realized that almost all the remaining victims had their brains untouched. Normally the brains were the first thing to go. Must’ve been M. He would have to remember to thank M later for the favor. It took them a while to come back as undead if their brains were left and although R had lost all sense of time, he could tell that he had enough time to work his way through to make sure no more undead pop up. There were enough of them as it is.

The first guy he came across was laying face down with pieces of his flesh and guts speckled on the floor around him. R knelt down and dug his fingers into the dead man’s skull. He had underestimated previously his hunger as the sight of brains made him loose any bit of self control he had left from earlier. R stuffed the ridged smooth tissues into his mouth, lapping up more and more with both of his hands until bits were falling out of his mouth because he couldn’t fit anymore.

As he chewed his senses got overwhelmed, and a barrage of memories and feelings overtook him. He saw the dead man as a child, on a fishing trip with his whole family. His older sister turned back at him and smiled. Then the scene cut to the man knocking on someone’s door. He was suited up and held a bouquet of flowers in his hands. A burly looking man opened the door to him. Although the scene ended there, somehow R recognised it as prom night.

Each new bite brought him a new memory, until there was nothing left for him to eat. He then got up and made his way to the next one. Memory by memory he took his time to clear up the room of any brain remaining matter. Without his plane to go to he had nowhere else to be for the night so he had all the time in the world, or at least the night. It wasn’t until the last victim that he thought of Nora. The last one was laying nearby to where he’d cornered Nora. By then his hunger had been tamed to a point where he could think clearly too. Although he didn’t know what to think of. He had a live woman in his home and no reason to keep her there.

The sudden thought of Nora sitting alone in the plane, scared to death, while other undead and the boneys circled around the plane in search of food, made R feel guilty and for the first time in a long time he lost his appetite completely. He couldn’t bear the thought of another mouthful. Still, just to spare the poor woman slumped on the floor in front of him from his fate he dug in and pulled her brains out, stuffing all of it in the pockets of his hoodie. R knew this feeling of discomfort wouldn’t last and he would eventually feel hungry again. None, of the feelings ever lasted long enough for his liking.

With his pockets full he began to make his way back home. As R had predicted, the feeling of guilt dissipated by the time he went up the escalators and without realizing he had pulled out some more of the brains and was nibbling on them like candy. To his surprise the memories that overtook him had Nora in the centre of them.

She was standing in front of an open main door to a small lavender coloured house. R recognized the house. He and his horde had been in that neighbourhood once before in search of food.

In the memory she was so much younger than now, and her childish face was scrunched up into a perplexed frown. “Mom? Dad?” she asked while taking a careful step back outside. R noticed two dark looming figures emerging from the depths of the hallway, guttural moans emitting from their mouths. R realized her parents had gotten infected. “Mom? Dad?” Nora repeated herself, the fear obvious in her voice now. Suddenly a shrill scream came from inside but before her parents could reach her two precise gunshots hit them right in the middle of their foreheads and they collapsed at the doorway one on top of the other. Nora squatted down, covering her ears and screaming, “No!” Her screams became a garbled mess, but R could hear the words Mom and Dad among all the other things.

R snapped out of the memory. No wonder she was so afraid of him. He needed a different approach.

R didn’t know who the person was in relation to Nora but again he lost his appetite. Now for a longer time, because he felt uncomfortable at the thought of having to see Nora again in the memories.

After a while R opened the door to his home and awaiting him was terrified Nora again. She had bags under her eyes and looked like she hadn’t had any sleep at all. There was a broken look in her eyes as she vacantly stared out of the window not paying R any mind. With the blood still smearing her pale skin, for a moment to R she looked like any other infected person. Only thing giving away that she was actually alive was her shivering. R himself didn’t really feel hot or cold but he remembered the concepts vaguely from his now mostly forgotten past.

R opened one of the over head cabins, the clicking noise breaking Nora out of her trance. When R turned back to face her she had pressed herself against the seat, her brown eyes large and filled with tears again.

“What are you doing?”

R didn’t reply, choosing for his actions to speak for him as words weren’t quite cutting it right now. He spread the folded blanket and gently layed it on Nora. At first she looked surprised but then with a small nod of her head she said, “Thanks.”

“You... welcome... Don’t... cry...” R tried to console her again, only for Nora to look away. Just as he was about to turn Nora stopped him.

“Wait.”

R turned back.

“Why did you save me? You could have eaten me back there, why bring me here?”

R didn’t know how to answer that, he didn’t know himself either. He’d certainly intended to do so when he’d felt her throw glass at him, but then he’d turned around and something about the fear in her eyes contradicting her brave action to attract a xorpse to save a friend had awed him enough to lead them to this moment here. He just wasn’t sure exactly what about her eyes and emotions had had such an impact on him. Besides, even if he did know why, he couldn’t have expressed it. It was already so difficult to try and utter the few short sentences that he had. Instead R approached the phonograph and choosing a vinyl haphazardly put it on, hoping to create a less hostile environment for Nora. Then he again took his earlier spot across the isle and swaying to the music closed his eyes and soon fell asleep.

*

Nora didn’t realize just how exhausted she had been until she woke up the next morning. She had quite lost the track of time but she was sure that she had fallen asleep again sometime during the previous afternoon and managed to sleep all through the night until this morning. She felt still very miserable but not as exhausted anymore. Just the kind of depression upset feeling that had haunted her for months, almost a couple years, and even occasionally now, after her parents-- Nora didn’t finish that train of thoughts. Doing that would make her cry and crying would not get her out of this mess.

Rubbing her eyes she shifted in her seat only to notice the corpse leaning over the arm of his seat looking at her intently. The memories from what happened two days ago resurfaced, and Nora realized why he had spared her. She was his snack, not figuratively, but literally. A wave of fear washed over her and before she could think it through she had already asked the corpse, “Are you hungry?”

The corpse shifted back into his seat. “No... I... had... food...” He pointed at his pockets but then quickly dropped his hand down as if realizing a minute too late that he wasn’t supposed to do that.

However, the damage was done. Nora noticed it. Although, it was hard to tell as his hoodie was red, but there was a clear line of dried blood that had seeped through the fabric of his pockets. Nora didn’t want to think of what the corpse stored in his pockets. Right then to her dismay her stomach let out a loud growl. She couldn’t believe it! How could she feel hungry even after that? The answer was obvious, few things ever ruined her appetite anyway, but now she’d also been without food for almost 48 hours.

“I guess I’m the one that’s hungry,” she said awkwardly, then looked up alarmed at the confused corpse. “No, no, not for that stuff. Whatever it is in your pocket that you’ve snacked on. I’m hungry for something else, like a glass of water or something dried, like if you have raisins in your plane...”

The corpse kept staring at her for a while trying to register everything she said. Finally after a while he turned to her and slightly shaking uttered “N- no... raisins...”

“Uh huh, I guess I’ll have to take my leave then. Get back home, you know. Everyone must be soooo worried for me. And they have raisins too so that’s a plus,” Nora rambled hoping it would convince the corpse to let her go. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

“No! Not... Safe...” The corpse shouted, or at least he tried. Everything he did was so stiff and frozen. Nora couldn’t help but pity the man. How horrible it must be to slowly decay away like that.

Nora’s stomach growled again. “Well, I guess you’ll have to go get me some food then,” she said, wrapping the blanket around her tighter. Hunger and stress had made her body temperature drop.

To her surprise the corpse sat up eagerly and nodding its head lightly said, “O- okay...” Then he got up and began to waddle in that typical to corpses way through the isle. But before opening the door he glanced one more time at Nora and motioned with his hand for her to stay put. “Not... Safe...”

Nora watched after him through the window as he zombie walked across the airport runway towards the airport. Asking her to stay put. Funny. As if she had any other choice. The whole airport was teeming with corpses and she didn’t have a proper weapon on her. Going out there would be like serving herself on a golden platter for the corpses to eat.

It was difficult to tell how much time had passes but Nora guessed it was around noon, as the sun was quite high up in the sky, shining right into her eyes through the window. Nora was getting hungrier and hungrier by the minute and the boredom didn’t help one bit. She’d already lamented her fate too so there was no point getting depressed over that all over again. Tired of waiting for R to get her food Nora got up and decided to distract herself with the things R had in his “home”. R had already exposed her to the phonograph, but there were lots of other cool things in there too. There were lots of magazines, and specially photo-albums, of course several boxes of vinyls, and lots of of other things. Nora herself was most intrigued by the photo-albums. She couldn’t fathom why a corpse would collect photo-albums.

Before the plague Nora used to have a huge family. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grand parents, lots and lots of cousins. And they didn’t spend a single season without at least one family gathering. And rest of the time Nora would spend a lot of her free time poring over the family album asking her parents to retell her all the crazy family stories and legends over and over again. Seeing those albums made her feel nostalgic. She still remembered a lot of those stories.

Nora picked up the first album sitting on top of the pile. It had thick green marble design covers with golden linings on the sides. She took it with her to the seat she’d slept in and cranked it open. Staring back at her was a funny looking boy with short cropped hair and big ears. There was no information provided about the boy in the yellowed page the photo was glued to. That page had that sole photo in the middle of it. Nora turned the page. On the other side there were four photos per page. With each photo Nora saw the boy grow into a fine looking young man, with lots of friends. He was quite the activist judging from photos of him in protests and other public events.

Then there was an abrupt end of his photos and Nora came across another page containing only one photo. This time it was a funky looking girl. Just like the man, she grew up throughout her photos into a very bold and very pretty young woman with a sense of style to die for. Nora admired the faded shades of lipstick she rocked with her bold outfits, taking the limelight from anyone else around her in the photos. Eventually her photos came to a halt too. The third “chapter” of the album began with a wedding photo. The happy couple being the man and a woman. What Nora had thought previously to be separate sections for each sibling turned out to be a cute chapter-structured album of the couple and their family together.

Nora was on the couple’s second child when the door to the airplane opened with a jerk. She set the album aside and looked at the man expectantly as he dragged himself towards her. Nora was still a little afraid of him but not to a point to recoil from him anymore.

“Hi,” she greeted him, unsure of what else to do anyway.

“Hi...” he greeted her back, looking kind of spooked. He then thrust his hand forward offering Nora a rather large can.

She took it from him gingerly and inspected the label. He’d gotten her a can of corn. Nora turned the can around to check for the expiry date and to her pleasant surprised she had still almost 20 years time to eat it. Although, she hoped it won’t come to that. Another good thing was that the can had the ring thing on top of it that she could use to open it up. Nora immediately popped the ring up and then carefully peeled the lid open. Then after giving the contents a preliminary sniff and look, she was about to start eating when she realized she couldn’t just chug the corn down like juice.

Lucky for her, the corpse now extended his other hand, that was holding a spoon.

“Thank you,” Nora smiled meekly and immediately began to eat. As the first spoonful touched her tongue Nora let out a satisfied moan. After over 48 hours even an old can of corn felt like the most exquisite dish on earth.

As she ate the corpse stood right there staring at her, making her self conscious about eating like an starved animal, which she technically was. “Would you like some?” She asked him feeling immediately very stupid. Corpses don’t eat canned vegetables.

“N- no...” the corpse answered. Then he awkwardly turned away and vanished somewhere in the business class end of the plane.

Nora could hear him shuffling around, as she slowly began to slow down with her food taking more time to savor the taste of it properly. A couple minutes later the corpse came back with a bottle of beer and presented to her. The way he leaned forward reminded Nora of an over polite butler and she couldn’t help huffing in amusement. “Oh, thank you Mr...”

Encouraged by Nora’s relaxed attitude, the corpse smiled and sat down onto the isle facing her, “My... n- name...”

Nora looked at him patiently waiting for him to form the words.

“Rrrr...” the corpse closed it’s eyes trying to remember what his name was.

“Did your name start with R?” Nora tried to help him along.

The corpse merely nodded.

“Umm, Ronald?”

He shook his head.

“Richard?”

Another no.

“Ryan? You look very Ryan to me,” Nora blurted, suddenly feeling very encouraged to talk.

The corpse shook his head harder. “Rrrrr...”

“Well, I guess I could call you R for the time being. I’m sure we’ll figure out your name eventually,” Nora smiled to him encouragingly.

“Hhhmmm,” the corpse hummed in agreement. Then he suddenly looked up and asked her, “W- what... your... name..?”

“I’m Nora,” she replied, even though she was pretty sure he already knew that.

They sat in silence as Nora finished the remainder of her meal while R sat awkwardly not quite staring at her, but not quite staring elsewhere either, and repeated her name under his breath. Or at least he tried, it was difficult to be quiet in a pin drop silent environment. Nora could hear him whispering her name again and again as if he was trying to feel how that word fit in his mouth. She wasn’t sure whether she found it mildly unsettling or bizarrely cute.

Once she was done and feeling much better than she had felt for the last two days it became easier for Nora to think, and she realized she had to bring it up with R. She had to get back home. And if R was gonna eat her, he had to get over it immediately. Nora didn’t think she could go on for too long with the stress of her eventual demise.

She set the now empty can and beer bottle on the ground next to her feet and turned to fully face R. “R, I wanna go home,” she told him in a gentle yet stern voice, interrupting whatever he’d been doing this far.

R immediately shook his head, “It’s... not... safe...”

“I know R, but you managed to sneak me here, so why can’t you just sneak me back. How did you manage to protect me then anyway?”

*

R was terrified. Why, he did not know. But he couldn’t let Nora go now. He didn’t want to let Nora go now. He felt a strange pull towards her. She piqued a weird kind of curiosity in him. A feeling he hadn’t felt in ages, at least not without bashing someones brains in, and certainly not for two continuous days. He was not ready to go back to his boring “life” with no feelings, no interactions, filled only with enormous hunger.

“Not... safe...” he repeated.

“ I know it’s not safe, that’s why I waited for you to get back R, but I can’t stay here forever. I am very grateful for all the protection you’ve given me this far, but how long can we do this. I can’t be locked in here forever, R. Besides, you are a threat to me too, aren’t you?” Nora looked him in the eyes challengingly.

R looked away. She was right. If his hunger got the better of him, no amount of curiosity could save Nora. Still, just a couple more days. R knew he could go hungry for several more days. “Not... yet... They’ll... notice...now...”

“Alright,” Nora slumped back in her seat. “You promise to take me back home then?”

“Y- yes... Few... days...”

Nora didn’t reply.

For a while the two of them sat in silence until the awkwardness got to him. R decided to give Nora some time alone again to come to terms with the fact that she’ll have to stay here longer. R might have been dead, but he wasn’t a monster, or, well, an evil monster. He understood how difficult this must be for Nora.

However, when he stood up to leave Nora stopped him.

“Please don’t leave again,” she pleaded with him, “It gets really boring here.”

R was taken aback. “O- okay...”

He sat back down not sure what Nora wanted him to do if not leave. They both looked at each other for a while then suddenly Nora got up and joined him on the ground. R shuffled back a little so she’d fit comfortably. Once settled next to him, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders, Nora began to look at him as if he were some laboratory rat. The tables had turned and it was R’s turn to feel uncomfortable.

“R?”

“Hnghh...”

“How old are you? Cause you look like you could be twenty something, but you also look like a teenager. You know, you have one of those faces.”

R leaned back a little, getting more and more uncomfortable under Nora’s scrutinizing gaze, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Ohkay, well how’d you die?”

R shrugged his shoulders again. “I... Don’t... Remember...” He had no recollection of how he had gotten infected and changed. Sometimes he got fuzzy flashes of memories long forgotten, and felt like maybe it was recent for him, while other days he felt like he’d been like this forever.

“And I can’t even smell- You don’t smell rotten.”

R shrugged his shoulders. Again. This time looking visibly uncomfortable.

“I see,” Nora said, a hint of disappointment in her voice. “What about others? Are there other corpses like you?”

R looked at her confused, by what she meant. They all were corpses weren’t they?

“I mean you talk, clearly you think, you even recognize basic stuff like cold, or food. Are there other corpses that are like you?”

R shrugged his shoulders again. He felt weird. On one hand, why was Nora interested in all of that? On the other hand, for the first time R felt seen, like he wasn’t just another mindless creature roaming the streets for food. Appreciated was too positive a word. He felt acknowledged. Suddenly R felt a weird sensation in his chest. It wasn’t pain, it was like a weird ache, however, before R could think of it too much Nora interrupted him.

“You’re not rotting.”

R wasn’t sure what to make of that. Honestly, he was slowly starting to feel that perhaps it had been better when Nora was ignoring him and crying.

“I thought corpses rot. And there’s decay. Actually, you’re not even decaying, are you?” Nora leaned closer to him to get a better look.

“N- no... I... don’t... think... so...” R said, shifting further back.

Nora finally noticed his discomfort and leaned back again, and apologized, “Sorry, I just- back in the base, they have these tapes of you guys, and all of you look so horrible. And whenever we saw you on our scouting missions you all looked just like a horde of rotting humans. I thought you would stink up close or have visible decay. Because you know, you are decaying until you become like the skeletons.”

What Nora said made sense. At least from her point of view. It’s not like she knew what it was actually like to be around them. R doubted anyone knew. When the apocalypse broke out hardly anyone stuck around to do research on them. Not that, it would’ve helped. Any madlad brave enough to try that would’ve gotten eaten alive. Nora was just lucky that R was the weird one.

“Boneys...” R corrected her.

“Boneys?”

“The... skeletons...”

“You call them boneys?”

R nodded. “We... don’t... decay... we... give... up...”

“Pardon?” Nora looked intrigued.

“When... we... can’t...” R halted, trying to search for the right word, “when... we... get... too... hungry... we... become... boneys...”

Nora seemed blown away by the revelation. Her mouth was hanging open and her eyes were huge. For the first time R paid attention to the color of her eyes, she had warm brown eyes, so different from his dead grey ones.

“You mean, you have control over your hunger up to a point?”

“I... guess...” R shrugged, “but... it’s... hard... so... hungry... all... the... time...” As soon as R said that, he regretted it. This date, or whatever it was supposed to be was not going well. Now Nora must be terrified again, thinking he’d just lunge at her at any moment if he got hungry enough.

However, Nora just sighed. “Anyway, thanks for choosing to not eat me, R. Really appreciate that.” Then she changed the topic. “Hey, I didn’t mean to snoop around earlier. But I noticed you have a phonograph and lots of vinyls. Do you think we could put some music on?”

R was happy to do that.

They spent rest of the evening listening to music and going through more albums. Right after he put the music on Nora confessed to have gone through more of his stuff and even taking a photo album to leaf through. R didn’t mind. By the end of the evening they were sitting on adjacent seats and smiling at the photo of some stranger’s birthday party. The birthday girl had a goofy smile.

“Kinda like yours,” Nora smiled and turned to look at him.

R couldn’t tell why but something about the way Nora turned to look at him made his heart skip a beat, or something similar. Zombies didn’t exactly have working blood circulation. Or so he thought. He wasn’t really knowledged in physiology of the corpses, or even live humans, to be honest.

“It’s like you wanna smile, but you’re kinda scared to do that. You look cute in a weird way when you do that though.”

As if on trigger, R smiled, and then got conscious about it. He didn’t remember when was the last time someone called him cute in a weird way.

Nora had already turned back to the album and closed it. “I think I’m gonna call it a day. I’m getting tired.”

R quickly got up from the seat, allowing Nora more space to sleep comfortably.

Nora had lifted up the arm rests earlier so now she just laid across the seats and curled up under her blanket. “Good night, R.”

“Good... night... Nora...”

Leaving Nora to sleep R went and turned off the phonograph. Then he sat on the seat across the isle and watched Nora quietly. She was a strange one. R had expected her to try and attack him or try and escape when he’d been out and about. In fact, he had kind of hoped she would. At the time he was still very conflicted about bringing her with him, and just wanted her to not be there so he could stop feeling that way. Now, however, R wished she could stay longer. Just like Nora was curious about him, he was curious about her. He’d eaten rest of the brains, but there were no more memories with Nora in them. He wanted to know more about her. About her parents, her life at the base, what she did, what she liked, what she disliked. Anything and everything about her.

“Nora,” he whispered again. The name felt good in his mouth. It had been so long since he had called someone by a name instead of a grunt, or someone had called him by a name instead of a grunt. R wasn’t a name per se, but it was better than a grunt.

After a while it struck him that sitting there staring at a sleeping woman was a bit creepy, so he decided to go out. Not that the other corpses would really notice he hadn’t wandered around in quite some time, but still he wanted to maintain normalcy for as long as possible with both parties. Besides, to keep Nora safe, he had to eat too. Which then reminded him, that to keep Nora alive, she would need more food as well. So he set out to first fill himself and then find some more canned food for Nora.

*

Next morning Nora woke up to a terrible sensation in her abdomen. Oh no, this was bad. In all the stress and fascination she had completely forgotten she had a uterus that hated her for no reason. Good thing R wasn’t there, Nora got up and went to the airplane bathroom. As if to compensate her bad luck with the periods the lights in the bathroom somehow worked, and Nora didn’t have to make things complicated for herself. Luckily there was no blood yet, but Nora knew it was only a matter of time. As she took a wad of toilet paper to use as a makeshift pad, many thoughts raced through her head.

Nora knew she was safe with R, or so she hoped. He hadn’t given her a reason to doubt that yet. But with periods came the smell, and Nora had no supplies or even running water to counter that. Heck, it even hadn’t occurred to her as she was dehydrated enough to not need to go to the toilet this far. Which was a whole another problem. Right, now her main issue was the blood though. She wasn’t sure how this would affect the peace between her and R. For a moment Nora wondered if there was a need to make a deal out of it anyway, since maybe just not taking care of her basic hygiene the past few days might hide the smell of blood, but then remembering the pep talk video about the smelling powers of corpses quickly decided against it. There was no way Nora could hide it from him long enough for it to be safe for her to return to the base.

Nora gingerly walked back to her seat as the wad of tissue stabbed her uncomfortably. Another reason why she needed to talk to R.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed but sometime later she heard the familiar jerk of the door. She turned to look back and saw R closing the door. He was holding a bag in his hands. When he turned away from the door he noticed Nora looking at him and flashed her a smile. Nora smiled back.

“Good... morning...” R said as he approached her.

“Good morning, R.”

“I.. got.. you.. more.. food..” R opened the bag to fish out a can. Nora took the can gratefully. She was glad to see that the can was similar as the last one. She popped and pulled the lid open and dug into peas R had brought her.

“I.. got.. some.. meat.. too..” R pulled out a packet of dried meat. Nora took it from him and looked over the expiry date approvingly.

“Thank you so much R!” Nora was delighted. “When did you even go out to get these?”

“After.. you.. went.. to.. sleep..”

Nora felt bad at hearing that. She knew corpses didn’t feel or need much, but still R had spent the whole night scouring food for her. “Oh, R! You didn’t have to. Did you spend the whole night just looking for food for me?”

She noticed hesitation in R’s face, “I.. ate.. too..”

Nora’s heart dropped. Of course, he had. It’s not that Nora did not expect him to eat at all while she was around, but it had been so easy to ignore it. Though, it was better he went outside and ate someone Nora didn’t know of rather then be eaten herself.

“He.. was.. dead.. already..” R tried to calm her, “I.. got.. left.. overs.. from.. a.. boney..”

Nora let out a not amused chuckle. She’d never thought she’d hear anyone refer to a human as leftovers. When she looked back up again, she noticed a sort of fear in R’s face.

“Don’t.. worry.. I.. won’t.. eat.. you..” he tried to frantically assure her.

“It’s alright, I know you won’t. It’s just so strange. But I guess every living being needs food to survive. Well, you’re a corpse, but you’re kinda alive, in your own way.”

R seemed to calm down a little, but then Nora felt a jab again between her legs and remembered.

“Actually, R. Do you think you could take me back today?” Nora noticed R become tense again. “It’s not about what you eat. Or, I mean it kinda is. God, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“Not.. safe..” R said for the umpteenth time.

“I know it’s not, but it’s gonna get even worse now,” Nora said, frustrated by that stupid pair of words. “I’m on my period, R, I’m gonna start bleeding anytime. There are no supplies, no running water, nothing. Even if you go and stuff your face every night, can you really resist the blood smell. And what about the other corpses out there? Is this plane really safe enough for me? I don’t know, like what if when you open the door to go out and the smell attracts other corpses. Gosh, I don’t even know how good your sense of smell is.”

R stared at her and swayed a little like he did whenever Nora said more than two long sentences at once and he struggled to comprehend everything immediately. Despite her frustration and fear, she waited patiently for him to say something. After a long wait he finally said, “Wait..”

Nora watched as he put his hand in his pockets and took out something gooey in his hands. He reached out to her and just like when they first met, wiped the stuff on her face and neck. When his fingers touched her skin, Nora closed her eyes and tried her best to not pull away.

“Finish.. eating.. then.. I’ll.. take.. you.. somewhere..”

Nora nodded and went back to her food, although she didn’t feel like eating anymore. If it wasn’t for her body craving for food she couldn’t have eaten at all. Nora wondered if it was like that for the corpses. If it was either the mind or the body over ruling all control and making the corpses do what they did.

After they finished eating, R took her out after three days of isolation. It felt good to be out again. But as soon as she felt good Nora noticed the other corpses around the plane sniffing the air like rabid dogs. R leaned towards her, “Don’t.. worry.. you’ll.. be.. safe.. just.. act.. dead..”

Nora did as she was told and followed R down the stairs. In these three days with not much to do she had had plenty of time to observe the corpses, specially R, and had no trouble copying them. So she couldn’t help but feel a strange kind of pride, despite everything, when halfway across the runway R leaned again towards her and said, “You’re.. doing.. good..”

Nora flashed him a quick smile and then they continued walking.

Nora didn’t remember much about the first day, but as they walked through the airport she began to recognize certain parts from her walk away from the base. When they came to the escalators instead of going down, where he’d brought her from R walked past them and lead her through a series of lefts and rights, and ups and downs, to the car parking of the airport.

Nora wanted to ask him why they couldn’t just go the way they’d come the first day, but decided against it. By now she knew that the gooey stuff he’d put on her was the thing protecting her from the corpses, but she still could see some of them looking around as if they could smell her underneath that stuff. Nora had no other choice but to trust R.

R looked around for a moment and then did the thing that Nora had dubbed in her mind as his way of showing delight by standing straighter than normal. She looked in the direction and noticed a red car.

“Come..”

Nora followed him to the car. There were a few corpses still around so she walked slowly trying not to let her excitement get the better of her. Maybe R knew a faster and safer way to take her to the base after all. R jerkily slid into the driver’s seat while Nora sat next to him in the passenger seat.

Nora had not expected that. She watched keenly as R slowly put the belt on and then turned the key, making the car roar into life. They slowly made their way out of the parking. Although, the going was slow Nora enjoyed it thoroughly. R drove very bad, so bad it was hilarious. The car stopped every few meters and Nora was pretty sure this wasn’t the first car he’d tried. The way he drove no way the fuel in a car could last more than a single ride.

Once they were out of the airport Nora finally dared speak freely. “Didn’t know you knew how to drive. It’s quite impressive.”

R grinned, “I.. found.. a.. driving.. manual..”

That explained his skills, or the lack thereof.

“You know R, you’re so cool,” Nora continued, “Like you know so much more than what we at the base think you do. You can read, you can drive, you collect things, listen to music, basically you do almost everything we do. Nothing like the mindless monsters I used to think you corpses were.”

R was so focused on driving he didn’t reply, but Nora knew he’d heard and registered everything she said, as the grin on his face widened. Seeing him smile made Nora smile too.

“You know, if you weren’t so pale and stood up a bit straighter no one could tell you eat humans. You could pass as one of us so easily.”

Again, R didn’t reply. Nora decided to let him focus, and began to admire the scenery outside. She’d never thought she’d get to see the world outside of the base ever. It was so beautiful. Of course, everything was in ruins, but there were also so many plants, and animals, and just the fresh air felt so different here. Nora took a deep breath filling her lungs. Who knew if she’d ever get to experience this again.

As she stared at the scenery around them her thoughts went back to what she had told earlier to R. Nora knew if Julie, or anyone else for that matter, found out they’d make fun of her, but she found R kind of cute. And good looking. She kind of wished that the base hadn’t given up on a cure. She tried to picture what R would be like if they could fix him back to his pre-infection glory. Nora turned to look back at him and noticed a lock of his hair twisted away from his forehead. She felt an immense desire to straighten it back. Just to touch R, feel what his skin was like-

Her thoughts got cut off when the car stopped again, rather violently. Nora looked around trying to figure out where R had brought her. It wasn’t anywhere near the base, she was sure of that.

“R, where are we?” she asked, looking at the suburb R had brought her to and then looking back at R.

Both Nora and R got out of the car.

“These.. houses.. should.. have.. water..” R explained.

Nora didn’t know if she should be happy that R was being so considerate or if she should be mad at him for not just taking her to the bloody base. However, something caught her eye and she forgot all about R for a moment.

It was the swing set on the front yard of one of the houses. It looked so familiar. Nora gulped, she remembered these swings. She used to play here with Julie before the plague.

Ignoring R’s grunts Nora picked up her pace and began to walk past the row of houses towards the one she could’ve never forgotten. R tried to call out for her, repeating that same dang “not safe” thing over and over, until Nora finally stopped. She waited for him to catch up with her.

“Slower.. or.. they’ll.. find.. out..” R tried to say through his gasps for breath.

She knew he was right, it had been dumb of her to do that, “I’m sorry. I know. I couldn’t help myself when I saw the swings. I used to live here R! How’d you know how to bring me here?”

*

R shrugged, “Luck..” He stared at her, a sense of hope blooming in him when she turned and continued walking towards her old home. R thanked his lucky stars that everything had worked out right. When he’d asked Nora to join him that morning he hadn’t been sure whether he’d manage to find the right house or not. It had been so long since the horde had come this far.

R and Nora walked in silence towards the right house. It felt like Nora was suddenly walking even slower than him. “Everything okay?” R asked concerned.

At first Nora didn’t say anything, but then “No, I’m not. I don’t know if I can do this after all.”

“Water..” R tried to encourage her. He’d eaten enough brains to know what a nuisance periods could be for women and hoped that the prospect of a proper environment to go through one week of trouble would keep Nora from insisting to leave.

Nora looked like she wanted to say something, but decided not to.

Finally, they stopped in front of the right house. R waited patiently for Nora to gather the courage to step her foot into the front yard. Her eyes were locked to the open doorway. There was a terrified expression on her face that made R feel that weird kind of ache in his chest again. He really wanted to reach out and hold her hand. Maybe he would even have dared to do so if they hadn’t gone through so many conversations about R potentially eating Nora. He didn’t want to startle her.

What felt like an eternity later Nora drew a deep breath and took her first step towards the house. R followed her while keeping an eye on their surroundings. It was unlikely for any of his kind or for any boneys to be there, still better safe than sorry. The front yard wasn’t too big, with five to six long steps they came to the doorway where Nora froze again.

She put her hand on the door jamb where dried up blood splatters had discolored the white jamb almost black. She carefully ran her fingers over the stains. “Mom, Dad.”

R remembered the memory again. There was a profound sadness in her voice that made R want to hold her hand again. Or say something. Do anything that could comfort her even a bit. He tried to quickly think of something but couldn’t come up with anything.

“ _I’m sorry for your loss? Or maybe I feel so bad. No, not that. Ugh, why do I have to be so weird. Why can’t I think of something?_ ” R lamented to himself. Before he could say anything Nora stepped inside.

As they walked down the hallway Nora spoke up, “They were standing here,” she told him.

It wasn’t the correct spot, R knew, but he let her go on.

They’d told me to come straight home after school. We were supposed to go to my Aunt’s and join another base with the rest of our family.”The government was still trying to go on with normal life and somehow contain the plague, but they failed miserably.” She chuckled a bitter laugh. “I felt it the moment I saw the door open ajar, it just somehow felt wrong.” She didn’t finish her recollection of the day. R didn’t really need her to anyway.

Instead, he finally gave in to the feeling and rested his hand on her shoulder giving it a light squeeze. Nora turned back and gave him a half hearted smile. Her eyes were glossy with tears.

“Anyway, let’s go check if the water is actually working here or not

Nora navigated through the house surprisingly easily considering that she’d been away for eight years. As she explored each room on the first floor R remained standing in the hallway.

“Yesss! The water’s running, alright.” Nora’s triumphant statement came somewhere from the depth of the kitchen. “How is it even...”

R followed her voice to go see what was going on and noticed Nora curiously turning the dials of the electric stove.

She looked up at him and giggled, “The electricity’s working too. I can’t believe this!”

R smiled. Perhaps the day wasn’t as badly ruined as he’d feared earlier.

“Let’s go check out upstairs.” Nora took him by the arm and dragged him upstairs.

The stairs creaked under their feet quite loudly as they made their way upstairs. It was only a narrow corridor up there with two bedrooms on two ends and a toilet facing the staircase. Nora first approached the toilet, after checking the water and electricity there, and approving of what she found in her mother’s toilet supply cabinet she continued to her bedroom. They both ignored the other bedroom.

“Wow,” Nora gasped at the sight of her room, “so much dust. Mom would have absolutely killed me if she’d seen my room in this condition.”

R followed her inside only to be greeted by an explosion of teal-y green. Nora, must’ve noticed the weirded out look on his face. “I always wanted to work in the medical field. I used to play pretend as a nurse and my parents encouraged me quite a lot.”

He couldn’t understand why any parent would give in to such hideous decor, yet somehow the room just had Nora written all over it. The way she perked up in bursts talking about all sorts of things, asking him weird questions and throwing science facts at him. Everything in the room was neatly put into its own corner of the room yet when you looked closer you could see the tiny centres of mess. It was like R’s plane but disguised as a clean room to keep Mom from noticing.

There was a bookshelf full of various books, true to her passion Nora had collected plenty of human anatomy for children- type of books. There were also small science-y figurines and toys decorating the empty spaces on the shelf. On one end of the bedroom was her bed covered with a duvet designed with band-aids, nurse’s hats, red crosses, and cute little ambulances.

“Man, I can’t believe I forgot about you!” Nora gushed over something by her desk on the opposite end of the room, next to her bookshelf. She picked up something and turned to show it to R. “R, this is my plush ambulance Charlie, Charlie, that is my new friend R,” she introduced them to each other.

R waved his hand awkwardly at the toy in her hands making Nora laugh out loud.

“My Dad got him for me when I was five. I never went anywhere- oh!” Suddenly Nora bent forward scaring R.

“What’s.. wrong.?” R rushed forward to support Nora.

“I’m fine, it’s just a cramp. Was about time.” Nora stood up straight again, “Could you wait for me downstairs? I think I should get a shower and get changed.”

R nodded and left hastily, as hastily as he could, to let Nora have some privacy.

The living room was dusty but cozy. R stood in front of the fireplace looking at the photos of Nora and her family hanging on the walls. Nora had once been a very adorable little girl. R ran his fingers over the dust covered photo frames to clear up more details. From under the dust a small face grinned back at him. In the photo Nora was wearing a blue swimsuit and held a tiny yellow spade in her hand. The waves were covering her legs and had made her sand castle crumble down, but she didn’t seem to mind. A sudden desire to go to the beach and feel the sand and the water under his feet overtook him. It was a pity he couldn’t ask Nora if she’d like to go to the beach. It was difficult enough as it is to keep her from mentioning the base again and again.

R moved on to the bookshelves on the other end of the room. This family sure loved to read. R could read too, and he quite enjoyed it. Specially, the women’s magazines, since they had so many things about feelings, although R wasn’t sure all of those advice columns were always right. R pulled out a book from the shelf, it was an atlas on birds around the world. Taking it with him R sat down on the couch to read it.

He didn’t realize how much time had passed when the stairs creaked announcing Nora’s arrival. She entered the living room dressed in a pair of grey sweatpants and a black cardigan. On her feet she was wearing fuzzy slippers. Nora gave him a twirl and asked, “How do I look?”

Lovely, cute, adorable. R settled for, “Nice..”

“Thanks,” Nora smiled. “What you got there?” she joined him on the couch.

“Bird.. atlas..” R said, feeling very conscious about the lack of distance between the two of them. It hadn’t occurred to him in the plane when they sat next to each other, but it was different here. In the plane the seats were rigid and the arm rests created a sense of distance. On the soft couch with no arm rests between them despite sitting with some distance between them R could feel the heat of Nora’s arm against his own. And the smell...

R sniffed the air, only to realize it was the wrong move as Nora immediately got concerned. “What is it R?”

R noticed her inch away from him and shuffle her legs uncomfortably. She must think he was sniffing the blood. “No.. it’s.. not.. the.. blood.. I.. smell..” he scrunched his nose up again, “Lemon.?” He was confused, but Nora let out a relieved sigh.

“God, R. Why do you keep going around scaring me like that?” She gave him a friendly punch on the arm.

“Sorry.. didn’t.. mean.. to..” R said, embarrassed by the scene he’d caused.

Nora, shuffled back closer to him to take a look at the book. “I found an unopened bottle of Mom’s favorite shampoo. I don’t think it’s good for hair after all these years actually, but it can make do while we stay here.”

“Hmm.. Yeah..” R agreed.

“What bird are you on?” Nora asked despite seeing it for herself. R didn’t mind though, he welcomed any chance to talk to her.

“Rose..ate.. Spoon.. bill..”

Nora waited for him to continue.

“Platalea.. ajaja.. is.. a..wading.. bird.. of..” R stopped, his general stiffness made him a slow reader when reading out loud, making him feel rather embarrassed.

“Go on,” Nora encouraged him.

R continued reading, getting nudged or helped forward by Nora everytime he stopped.

They managed to read through a couple of different birds when R realized Nora suddenly put her hand on the book to stop him from reading. R looked up at her. She looked tired. Strange, how after cleaning up the exhaustion was more evident on her face than it had been before in the plane. On a closer look she kind of looked starved too.

“Are.. you.. hungry.?” he asked, wondering if they’d find any canned food in the house. If not, it wouldn’t be a big deal. He did have a bag of canned goods in the trunk of the car.

“A little, I saw some cans of beans earlier in the kitchen.”

They set the book aside and went to the kitchen. While Nora hunted for a can opener R “set the table” by finding her a spoon to use and laying it gently on one side of the table, and putting a bean can next to it.

“Found it!” she declared, waving the can opener above her head.

They sat on opposite ends of the table. R watched Nora struggle with the can opener and slowly scratch her way around the lid. Once open, instead of diving right into it like usual Nora looked back at him. “Why do you always stare at me when I’m eating?”

R looked away awkwardly, “S- sorry..”

“I mean, I don’t really mind. I’m just asking if you’re curious? Do you want to try a spoonful?” Nora pushed the beans towards him.

The smell wafting from the can was stomach churning, but he was curious indeed. Nora seemed to eat that stuff with delight. It kind of looked soft and squishy like brains too. R grabbed the can and pulled it closer to himself. Nora offered him the spoon he’d set for her. R grabbed it in a stiff grip and very slowly brought a spoonful of the beans to his mouth. Closer to his nose the smell was absolutely horrendous. R looked at the beans and then at Nora, and saw a mischievous smile forming on Nora’s face.

“Go on, try it.”

R gulped and closing his eyes put the spoon in his mouth. The consistency was tolerable but the taste was a struggle. R dropped the spoon and bent forward trying to not spit the food out, and gagged a few times as he felt the beans slide down his throat. To make it all worse Nora broke out into a loud laughter.

“Oh, you should see your face, R. You look so funny.”

Disgusted by the beans, he pushed the can back to Nora, realizing right after what he’d done. This date was not going well, not at all. He was about to pull it back towards him but Nora was faster. She grabbed the can back, and still laughing got up to get herself a new spoon.

“Not tasty, huh?”

R shook his head, waiting for Nora to realize any moment that she was about to eat food he’d touched. She didn’t.

“Then again, I guess meat would’ve been a better option to try first,” she sat back across him.

R didn’t reply, he wasn’t sure if anything except live things with a heartbeat would work on him or the others anymore even if it was meat.

“To be honest, R. minus eating the live things, with a little tweak no one could ever tell you apart from the rest of us. “Look at you, I could swear you looked so pale when we first met but now finding me food has exposed you to some sun. You don’t look like a porcelain doll anymore. You should keep getting out more. Like out out, not out of your plane into the airport. And your posture is terrible. I know you guys are agile. I saw it that day at the laboratory. I don’t understand why you corpses keep shuffling like that. You should stand up straight. You’d look like any other respectable person of the society.”

Hearing her say all that made R scream internally. As if he didn’t know that. He wanted all of those things too. He just wanted to connect with others, but they were all dead. There wasn’t much connecting left for the dead to do.

*

Noticing R’s discomfort Nora felt bad. She’d spoken too much. R might be a corpse, but her experience from the last few days had proven to her that corpses had feelings too, as strange as it sounded. It’s not like the dead could really choose how they looked, and perhaps her comment about R not going out enough was a tad wrong. After all he shuffled around all day. The dead were pale because of no circulation. Sun had nothing to do with it.

No circulation?

Nora’s eyes shot up back at R. The man was looking around, doing that “searching for words to reply” thing of his. She took a better look at him. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it but on a closer look something about R seemed different, changed.

Nora averted her gaze when R looked at her, and began to eat faster to get them both out of the awkward situation. However, the thought just wouldn’t leave her. With each mouthful of beans a small idea began to form in Nora’s head, but it would have to wait for later.

After finishing her food, Nora washed the spoon and rummaged through the cupboard to find her mother’s plastic bag of plastic bags to use one as a trash bag. It didn’t really matter if she tidied up after herself, but it felt like the right thing to do. She felt R shuffle up next to her with the spoon he’d used. She extended her hand to take it, but R stepped back.

“I.. can..” R offered.

“Are you sure? I can wash it, it’s just a spoon.”

“I.. can..” R repeated.

Nora stepped aside to let him try. His movement was a bit frozen but otherwise, he did a good job. Nora felt bad, she hoped he wasn’t doing this because of what she’d said as he was already going above and beyond to keep her safe. R showing initiative like this made her feel even more resolved about her idea.

They finished up with everything in the kitchen and headed back upstairs, but when R turned right to go to Nora’s bedroom she pulled the hem of his hoodie, “Not there, the bed is too small,” and guided R to her parents’ bedroom. Despite entering the room for a second time that day, Nora got a familiar feeling of void and sadness rushing over her again, but unlike after the shower, now she fought back to not let it get in the way.

“The bed here is big enough for both of us to share,” she explained again.

R looked spooked.

“Don’t worry, I won’t stab a stake through your heart in your sleep,” Nora joked eliciting one of those stiff lopsided smiles R did that looked more like he was showing off his front teeth. “I can’t have the guy who saved me from being eaten alive sleep on the floor, now can I?”

If Nora hadn’t known better, she would have thought that R was blushing.

“But first you’ve got to shower too if you want to sleep here,” she added, immediately spooking out R again. “What? I didn’t take a nice long shower just to get all that crust and dirt all over me again.”

R hesitantly turned to go back like an upset little puppy. Nora wasn’t sure if it had been a good idea to send him to shower on his own, but she reasoned with herself that if he was capable enough to drive and wash a spoon, not to mention keeping her alive in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, then he should have enough skills to shower. Meanwhile, she rummaged through the wardrobe again trying to find clothes that would fit R.

In her memories her Dad was a tall and strong man. Going through his clothes Nora realized that she’d just been very small at the time of his death. She doubted any of her Dad’s clothes would fit R as he was tall and skinny unlike her Dad, who had been average and stocky. Nora was still going through the clothes when she heard R call for her.

“Nora.. I’m.. done..”

“Be there in a minute!” Nora had taken out some potential outfit candidates and with a quick overview picked out sweatpants and a black hoodie similar to R’s.

The toilet door was already cracked open so she just stuck her hand in to let R grab the clothes and the towel and went back to the bedroom to put everything away.

As she folded and put away the last few pieces of clothes she heard the bathroom door creak open and close and then R’s shuffling steps.

When she looked at the doorway her breath hitched just for a moment. R was still slightly pale but the lighting of the room made him look flush and with all the grime gone from his skin and his wet hair flat against his forehead he looked kind of cute. The black hoodie and his black hair made a nice contrast to his grey eyes.

“You look nice,” she complimented him.

“T-thanks..”

“And look we’re almost matching too,” she waved her hand over her black cardigan and grey sweatpants outfit, and then over his black hoodie and grey sweatpants.

“I.. don’t.. have.. slippers..” R pointed out.

“Yeah, Dad didn’t use slippers, but I can give you a pair of his socks if you want.”

“No.. I’m.. okay..” R protested.

He entered the room properly and Nora noticed how the hoodie was a tad too loose around the waist while the pants kept riding up. “I’m sorry. Dad was shorter and stockier than you so couldn’t find anything that would fit you right.”

“I.. like.. this..” R assured her, “Specially.. the.. hoodie..”

Nora gave him another full body look and decided it was time to put her idea into action.

“You know, there’s something else missing,” she started carefully.

“What.?”

“Earlier I put some of Mom’s make up on. I guess, you didn’t notice.”

R nodded and shook his head in quick succession, unable to decide which one would be a safer reply, almost crumbling Nora’s facade by making her laugh.

“It’s okay, It was some light make up so you weren’t really even supposed to notice.”

R relaxed again.

“But it’d be a pity if you didn’t try some too. I mean you’ve got a nice pale skin, any color palette would look good on you.” Nora noticed R getting visibly hesitant about the idea, “It’s alright, just some light make up, like mine. Nothing too crazy,” Nora tapped her own cheek lightly, as if trying to assure him that it won’t bite.

R didn’t say yes, but he didn’t say no either, or run away when Nora pulled out the make up equipment, so Nora decided to take it as an agreement to let her go crazy on his face. She sat him on the edge of her parents’ bed so that she could see his face properly. Although, she had assured R that any color would go with his skin she found applying make up to his face quite difficult. Despite the shower induced flush R was pale, nothing like the slightly darker Italian skin Nora had inherited from her mother. The colors looked too dark on him, not to mention the deteriorated quality of her mother’s old make up. Nora ended up experimenting quite a bit before she felt like she was anywhere near satisfied with the result.

An eternity later Nora stood up straight and stared at him the way a painter stares at their painting to evaluate it. “Looks passable to me,” she muttered mostly to herself. R smiled his small toothy smile at her, making her heart flutter. With more life to his face, R looked almost kissable.

Ignoring the sudden burning desire to kiss him, she instead opted to gently pat the excess powder that had fallen all over R’s hoodie, and then extended her hand towards him.

*

Although there was a considerable amount of space between them at that moment everything felt overwhelming. In one evening Nora had absentmindedly done gesture after gesture making a weird feeling form at the bottom of his stomach. Eating from the same can, the passing remark about sharing the bed, her sudden request to put make up on him, having her face so close to his for who knows how long for the said make up session, and now the hand.

R stared at the hand. The feeling in his stomach was one that he had felt before when eating brains, but he couldn’t pin point which memories elicited that feeling. Gingerly he took hold of Nora’s hand and let her lead him to the dusty mirror with a clean streak right in the mirror where Nora had wiped it earlier with her hand.

They stood side by side staring the their reflexion.

“How do you like it?” Nora asked, sounding rather proud of her handiwork.

To be honest he wasn’t sure if the hours of sitting had been worth the result, but he had to admit she managed to make him look different. As she’d said before, he was passable. He didn’t look as lively as Nora but standing there watching himself next to her in the mirror the feeling in his stomach strengthened. It was a kind of longing that kept gnawing at him.

They reminded R of the old photo of Nora’s parents he’d seen earlier downstairs. Him and Nora looked like a couple. Nora was even hanging onto his arm the way her Mom had her arms wrapped around Nora’s Dad’s arm. R wasn’t sure if Nora herself realized it, after all, even he had realized it only now, how close they had become over the past several days.

“R?” Nora nudged him.

“Yeah?” R turned to look at her only to be entranced by her huge brown eyes looking up at him.

“How is it?” she repeated.

“It’s. Nice.” R half lied. Nora beamed at him, even though it was obvious on her face that she knew how R actually felt about the make up. They stood there in front of the mirror, their eyes locked, the rest of the world long forgotten.

R and Nora were shaken out of their little bubble by a loud noise coming from outside. Before R could even comprehend what was going on Nora had shot to the otheSr end of the room and switched the lights off. R was about to go to the window when Nora hissed at him, “R don’t!”

He turned to look at her, worried by the panic in her voice.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, I hope they didn’t see the light.”

R narrowed her eyes, not quite following Nora.

“I’d recognize that sound anywhere. The scouts wouldn’t dare to make so much noise on their own. I think after the stunt you and your friends pulled at the clinic, almost risking Julie and Perry’s lives, now they’re only going out for supplies with soldiers instead of scouts.” Unlike R, Nora crept up to the window carefully and shifted the curtains just enough to see Julie, her Dad and Perry walk on the front while being followed by soldiers, a few jeeps and even a tank. They were coming towards the house.

“Nora!” she heard Julie shout her name.

“Oh Julie,” Nora’s face contorted into a mix of longing and fear. They weren’t on a supply run. Julie must’ve convinced her Dad to come and search for her. Sometimes it was so easy to forget just how much Julie cared about her, what with Julie spending a lot of her time with Perry, and both women’s personalities clashing from time to time.

R looked at her tensed face. Even in the dark he could see the conflict on her face. It was obvious she wanted to go, yet she didn’t look happy to see them. R didn’t feel happy either. He knew Nora had to go back but he didn’t want to let her go yet, not after everything that had happened tonight.

Suddenly Nora jerked back almost clocking him on the jaw with her head. R let out a low grunt.

“I’m sorry,” Nora quickly apologized. “We need to find a place to hide you. Julie can be very stubborn, and right now it seems like she is going to force Mr. Grigio into coming all the way in here to find me.”

R finally realized why Nora was acting so frantic. Although he had yet to see what was outside, from the sound he knew whatever they were facing was too much for him and Nora to deal with on their own.

As if reading his mind Nora voiced his concerns “I can’t have them find you. Mr. Grigio and Perry would shoot your head off before I can even open my mouth.”

R looked down into her eyes and realized she was afraid for his sake. R felt terrible. Despite everything he’d done to her she still cared for him more than herself. She should’ve been worrying about proving to this Grigio guy that she hadn’t gotten infected yet here she was switching off lights and avoiding the window to keep him safe.

“Don’t. You. Want. To. Go. Home?” he whispered back, trying to understand why she was doing all of this for him.

“Of course, I do. But not without you. I don’t want you to die or stay behind and waste your life away.”

“Nora!” Perry’s shout cut through their conversation. They had gotten closer to the house.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Nora pulled away from R and began to creep around the room like a spooked animal.

All the warmth and fuzziness R had felt earlier was gone. Instead between Nora’s frantic whispers and the scary noises coming from the jeeps and the tank R began to feel suffocated. He couldn’t think or even properly register the situation in it’s entirety.

Just as suddenly as the sounds had started they ceased too. Nora, who had begun to empty her parents’ wardrobe to stuff R in there, stopped on her track and crept back to the window.

R wanted to see to, but every time he tried to get closer Nora would gently shove him away. Finally, after fifteen minutes she finally drew back from the curtains and the tension on her face and shoulders lifted. “They’re leaving.”

Despite the sounds subsiding Nora insisted on going directly to bed without switching the lights on. “We should get some sleep. They might come back in the morning. Maybe they left for now cause Mr. Grigio doesn’t usually want to risk it at night. We’ll have to wake up early and find a new place to-”

“You. Could. Have. Gone. Home,” R interrupted her.

“I told you already, I’m not going back without you. Clearly you corpses are more than mindless monsters, and they need to know that. I want to take you back with me. You could help our researchers find a cure,” Nora said.

Hearing her say that made R’s heart hurt. It was weird but he didn’t like the idea of her only thinking of him as a test subject rather than something else.

“Imagine it, R,” Nora continued, her earlier reservations slowly going away and the excited gleam returning to her eyes. “You could have your life back. Do normal things again, feel normal things again. Just think of it R, you could eat normal food, have a career, a family. You could have a life.”

_“I could have a life with you,”_ crossed through his mind. That moment it hit R. He’d fallen in love with Nora. Standing there in the dark yet still being able to see her face clearly R realized for the first time that the feeling that had begun as a weird curiosity had bloomed into love. He loved Nora.

Standing there watching her almost elatedly gush about his potential future, right after losing her best chance to go back home safely, R also realized he was a monster worse than the corpses or even the boneys. Corpses and boneys couldn’t help what they were doing, but he could. He had chosen to bring Nora here, to keep her here and to pretend to protect her. None of them were normal corpse urges. R was aware that he was different from the other corpses. Before Nora he felt good about not being like them, now he felt like he was the worst of them all.

“Nora,” he started hesitantly e ven though every fibre in his body screamed against it.

“Yeah?” sensing R’s discomfort Nora stopped explaining about the huge plans she’d come up with earlier that day.

“I’m. Sorry.” R mumbled.

Now it was Nora’s turn to be taken aback, “What for?”

“I... I. Could. Always. Take. You. To. The. Base,” he finally confessed. He’d turned his gaze away from Nora in shame and fear of seeing the disappointment and anger in her face that he deserved.

The moment kept dragging on as Nora said nothing. For a while R feared Nora might storm out into the night to try and catch up to the others. To the ones like her, not monsters like him.

Finally, Nora let out a deep sigh. “I...” Nora sighed again, searching for the right words, “Deep down I always knew that. It was obvious. If you could put that goop on my face and smuggle me in, then you sure as hell could do smuggle me back out of the airport. I guess, at first I just wasn’t thinking straight. I was afraid and didn’t want to risk it. But then I got to know you, experience life outside of the base and came back home after eight whole years. I kind of just kept allowing you to get me distracted.”

Although R wasn’t looking at her he could hear the vulnerability and upset in Nora’s voice. R felt a twist in his gut. He wanted to hug her or hold her hand or do something, anything, to console Nora, to assure her she was safe, that she’d get back to her real home in the base and won’t have to stay in this ghost building of her past.

“I’m. So-”

“Don’t R. I know what you want to say, I’m just not ready to hear it. I need some time to be upset. Both with you and myself.” Nora turned away and climbed onto the bed leaving enough space for R to sleep. “I know you don’t need sleep, but you should get some rest too.” She turned to face away from the side of the bed she’d left for R.

R shuffled slowly to his side of the bed and he laid down facing Nora’s back. For the first time in years he felt his eyes prickle and the pressure of a lump at the back of his throat rising. Good thing he didn’t need to breath.

R felt something warm on his face. Actually all over his body. It felt like he was being wrapped into a comfortable cocoon. He shot his eyes open. Instead of the bed he found himself laying on a grassy field in broad daylight. He realized it was the warmth of the sunlight he’d felt earlier. R stood up looking around to figure out how he’d ended up getting there. Suddenly he heard someone talking behind a row of bushes just a few meters away from him.

“If you could have any job in the world. Pretend that everything was totally fine. What would you wanna do?”

It was a voice R didn’t recognize, however, when he followed the voice to the other side of the bushes he saw three familiar faces lounging on the grass, relaxing in the sun. Nora, Perry and Julie. He’d heard Julie talk earlier.

“Nursing,” Nora replied. R thought of the little ambulance toy she’d shown him earlier. He couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Healing people, saving lives, and, you know, finding a cure.”

“I like that,” Julie approved. “Think someday someone’s gonna figure out this whole thing and exhume the whole world.”

“Exhume?” Nora repeated, looking mischievously at Perry. “And, and, and, what does that mean?”

“Um,” Julie got a little flustered, “Exhume means to like revive.”

“It means to dig up,” Perry finally chimed in on the girls’ conversation, “as in digging up a corpse.”

“Whatever,” Julie retorted.

Perry turned his gaze away from the girls and noticed R. “What are you doing here?”

R looked around to make sure that Perry was indeed talking to him and not someone else.

“What? Are you actually dreaming right now?”

“I’m not sure.” R was taken aback by Perry’s question. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind at all, but it made the most sense. How else could he have gone to sleep in Nora’s old house and woken up in this field otherwise.

“You can’t dream corpse, dreaming’s for humans,” Perry taunted him.

“Chill out Perry,” Nora rushed to defend R. “He can dream if he wants to.” Then she got up and stepped closer to R, “How about you R? What do you wanna be?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what I am.”

“Well, you can be whatever you want.” Nora smiled radiantly at him. Her brown eyes glinting in the sunlight in all the pretty shades of brown. “Isn’t that what they say.”

“We can right?” R asked her. Suddenly feeling very hopeful. “You and me?”

Nora nodded.

Unfortunately, Perry piped in again, “It’s not gonna happen lover boy. Not after you told her you kept her a trapped among corpses like you who wouldn’t hesitate even a second to bash her brains in and eat her.”

R looked down in shame. Perry was right.

“Rudolph?” Nora suddenly asked him with a stupid grin on her face.

Annoyingly noisy bird song broke him out of his dream. R opened his eyes. He was back in the dusty old room. He was still laying facing Nora’s side of the bed, but after a few seconds he realized there was nothing there. Nora was gone.

“ _So much for dreaming. You can’t be whatever you want. All I’ll ever be is a slow, pale, hunched over, dead-eyed zombie. What did I think was gonna happen? She’d actually wanna stay with me? It’s hopeless. This is what I get for wanting more. I should just be happy with what I had. Things don’t change, I need to accept that. It’s easier not to feel. Then I wouldn’t have to feel like this.”_ R thought to himself as he rushed out of the bed.

*

Nora was in the kitchen working her way around the lid of yet another can. She couldn’t wait to get back to base and eat something that wasn’t canned. Suddenly she heard hurried steps stomping down the stairs. Without even looking at her R shot past the kitchen and was out of the main door by the time she caught up to him. She saw him in the front yard looking around frantically.

“R!” she shouted after him. “What are you doing?”

R whipped around and just as quickly as he’d shot out of the house he returned inside, to her. “I. Thought. You. Left.”

“Why would I do that?” Nora asked, despite knowing very well, why R would’ve thought she left when he couldn’t find her after waking up. In fact, she had intended to do so. When she’d woken up that morning she’d found R deep asleep and decided to sneak out. However, then she remembered that corpses didn’t sleep. She wasn’t just imagining things the previous night. R was changing indeed. Nora was still feeling conflicted about everything, but she couldn’t just abandon him. He held the key to potential cure.

“You. Were. Upset.” R said.

“Rightfully so,” Nora pointed out.

“Y- yes. It’s. Not. Safe. Out. There.” R repeated what he’d said earlier, and before Nora could say anything he continued, “Not. Without. Blood. Of. The. Dead.” he gestured at the pockets of his hoodie.

Nora realized now that the mysterious goop he’d been smearing on her face all this time had been blood from her fellow scouts all along. Surprisingly, she didn’t feel as disgusted as she should have. She just felt stupid for not agreeing with her gut feeling sooner.

“I see,” Nora said gingerly and turned to go back to the kitchen. She could hear how R hesitated for a second before shuffling behind her.

Fifteen minutes had passed since they’d returned to to the kitchen, and Nora was washing the spoon she’d used for the can of beans she’d had. Eating didn’t really take much time when you only ate a can of beans while sitting in complete silence with the man who had literally walked you into a potential death trap.

Up until falling asleep Nora had mulled over her current situation, and to be honest she still was. She couldn’t forgive herself for how easily she had let R waltz, or rather shuffle, his way into her heart. Yeah, another realization that had struck her the previous night. She couldn’t help but thing how if Julie had been in her place she would have actually run a stake through R’s skull by now and been on her way back to the base. But Nora just couldn’t do it.

“Nora?” R interrupted her angry dish washing of the single spoon.

Nora put dropped the spoon in to the sink and turned to face R. “Yes?”

“I’m. Sorry.” R began, “I. Know. It. Was. Wrong. And. I. Do. Anything. To. Make. Up. For. It.”

Although R wasn’t looking at her, Nora could tell he genuinely meant it. There was a slight quiver to his voice that she hadn’t heard before. She took her time not replying, and watched R fidget in that way that had become so familiar to Nora by now. Finally she let him out of his misery.

“I can forgive you on one condition.”

R finally looked up at her, hope clear in his bluish grey eyes.

“I will forgive you if you come with me to the base-” she began, watching R get even more shifty and uncomfortable than before.”-tonight.”

There was an oppressive silence in the kitchen now. Nora could see how R was fighting between doing anything to be forgiven for what he had done to her, and keeping himself safe by avoiding the base. She felt bad for putting R in such a predicament, he’d never meant to harm her in any way after all.

“Don’t worry, R. I just want to help you. I promise I won’t let any harm befall you. I don’t want you to be like this forever. Even if this can’t be reversed, you deserve so much better than just shuffle around like an idiot. Maybe we can work out some sort of alternate food source for you corpses-”

Before Nora could start rambling again about this potential future, that R had always dreamt of but never believed he could achieve R interrupted her, “O-kay.”

*

When R had agreed to go with Nora that night he had done so gingerly. Only to ease the guilty sensation in his chest, but a moment later when he had a flurry of Nora in his arms hugging him tightly, suddenly the prospect of going with her to the base didn’t feel so dangerous anymore after all.

“Oh, thank you R! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Nora whispered into his ear, as if she’d been worried. Actually, maybe she had been. He remembered how she’d kept shoving him away from the window to make sure this Mr. Grigio doesn’t notice him.

Slowly, R lifted his limp arms and wrapped them around Nora and squeezed her lightly. He wanted to hold on to her a little longer but by then she had let go of him. R let his arms flop to his sides again.

“So.”

He looked at her waiting for her to continue.

“Do you have any more of that goop? I know a secret passage to the base, but we have to go back to the airport,” Nora explained sheepishly.

R nodded his head, but then immediately shook it remembering he’d taken a shower the previous night and left the hoodie in the wet bath tub. Nora seemed to realize it too.

“Ugh, great,” she furrowed her brows, “Do you think you could somehow get me past everyone else in the airport somehow?”

R thought for a moment. Maybe if he shuffled aggressively enough, dragging Nora after himself as if she was his conquest he was going to feast on and not share with the other corpses. “Maybe.” He shrugged.

Nora stared at him expectantly, urging him to go on.

“We’ll. Have. To. Act. Like. I’ve. Caught. You. And. Will. Eat. You. Without. Sharing.”

Something about the way he said it must’ve gotten her curious again, because R noticed the familiar glint in her eyes and steeled himself for a bunch of weird invasive questions.

“Would it be too bad if you acted that way? I mean if you made the other corpses think you won’t share.”

R let out an agreeing huff.

“Why?”

“Food. Scarce. So. Need. To. Share. It. Keeps. Us. From. Turning. Into. Boneys.”

R could see the information click into place in Nora’s mind. It was easier to share the food with corpses rather than hoard the food to oneself and let other’s starve till they lost to hunger and became boneys. Fighting for food with boneys was much more difficult. Besides, boneys were terrifying enough to even have the corpses be scared of them.

“Is that why you shuffle about in hordes too?”

“Yeah. Travelling.. Packs. Just. Makes. Sense.” R explained, and then continued, “Specially. When. Everyone. And. Their. Grandmother. Trying. To. Shoot. You. In. The. Head. All. The. Time.”

The laugh he managed to elicit out of Nora made him smile too. R could finally feel even the residues of their earlier conflict leave the room. He kind of wanted time to stop there. Of course, this moment was nothing compared to all the potential futures Nora had been pummeling him with since they’d come here, but something about this moment was just so precious. Although R didn’t really consider himself a man of rom-coms, he had hazy memories of having watched them, or maybe it was the memories he had gotten from eating all those brains. The main point being that this moment felt as if it belonged in a rom-com. Two unlikely lovers sharing a cute breakfast moment in the kitchen, laughing at something mundane thing, hilarious to only the two of them.

After that, the rest of the day until the evening passed in a flurry. They scoured the whole house searching for more canned or dried foods, weapons, and while Nora thought R wasn’t looking she picked up a few knick knacks around the house just in case their plan didn’t work out and she never managed to get back home again.

Finally, an hour after the sun had set, they got into the car and in the quiet of the night R drove them back to the airport. When they got to the parking to their relief no other corpses or boneys were there. They carefully got out of the car, being highly alert about their surroundings, just in case. R knew from experience that boneys could be devious with their attacks.

R reached out and grabbed Nora by the wrist, “You. Have. To. Look. Terrified.” he instructed her.

“Trust me, I am scared enough to look genuinely terrified. Don’t need to act anything,” Nora flashed him a nervous smile.

She had a point.

With a gentle yank he began to guide Nora into the airport. R knew everyone would be somewhat baffled by the direction they came from. By now only food available was from the direction of the base, not the city. Besides, some of the corpses might remember Nora from the day R had smuggled her into the airport, though R hoped they didn’t. R schooled his face into a hungry snarl and tried to look as threatening and imposing as possible when they entered the airport.

For a moment none of the other corpses noticed anything amiss. But then R felt the shift in attention. First they all began to sniff the air. R wanted to pick up his pace, but he knew he would give Nora away sooner if he did that.

Slowly one by one the other corpses began to take notice of Nora, and then the corpse hand dragging her by the wrist. R saw some of the corpses almost look at him admonishingly. Everything about him screamed that he was not intending to share a full grown adult meal with them. However, having feasted on the scouts only a couple days ago, they were not as desperate to pick a fight with him as they would have otherwise been, so none of them bothered stopping them. None except M.

M cut their path like an imposing human shaped mountain. R stopped on his tracks his tough corpse act faltering a little. He didn’t remember how he and M had ended up becoming best friend equivalents among the corpses, but for as long as he remembered they had been joining the same packs, sharing the meat and even trying to communicate with one another through grunts and huffs.

Unlike the other corpses M saw right through his facade. “Eat,” He demanded pointing at Nora.

“No.” R retorted.

“Eat!” M demanded with more force.

“Won’t. Eat. Nora.” R almost pleaded with him. He could feel the other corpses approaching them and he feared if they got close enough they might get tempted enough to try get their share of Nora.

“Eat,” M looked at him confused. He couldn’t understand why R wouldn’t just eat.

To M’s surprise R let his hand slide down Nora’s wrist and clasped her hand. “She. Has. Cure.”

He looked at the pair for a moment, a flash of memory running through his mind. Another pair of hands clasped together the same way, the sound of laughter, the light of the sun glinting against warm brown hair.

He shook his head and the flash of memory was gone leaving only R and the woman in front of him. He approached them slowly, and grabbed her other arm and before R could resist he turned and barked at the other corpses “We.... Eat!” and began to drag the duo away. Then he turned to R and in a tone as warm as he could muster he assured him that they were safe. “Save.... You....”

*

Nora had been too focused on the corpses approaching them from behind when the other corpse had grabbed her by the arm. Caught by surprise like that she hadn’t even thought about using the skills she had learned in her scout training. She again thought how had it been Julie in her place she would have knocked the life out of the other corpse with the pogo stick by now. “ _And R too, the very first day. And lost the only chance at finding a cure,”_ a tiny voice in Nora’s head reminded her. When she looked over at R he looked just as alarmed as she did, had they not been under so much stress they might have felt how R’s heart was racing a mile a minute. Even the small vessels of his palms were beating to the rhythm of his heart.

R nodded back at her as calmly as he could. Nora wasn’t sure if she could trust the other corpse but R seemed to trust him and this far R hadn’t let anything happen to her so she decided to trust him for the moment too. However, she tightened her grip around the pogo stick.

The effect of the other corpses presence by their side was immediate. All the other corpses hadn’t just stopped but began to even step back as R and M angrily grunted their way up the escalators.

“Where. Now?” M interrupted her mid-thought.

For a moment Nora felt disoriented until noticing where they were. They were at the other entrance of the airport, she remembered it hazily from the day R had brought her here. She realized that M had helped them get away from the other corpses.

“Uhh, right. We need to get back to the clinic. I’ll know the way from there.”

Nora felt the grip around her arm loosen up, she turned to look at M.

“Back.... Soon....” M said to them with a hopeful smile. R returned the gesture.

“Thank you,” Nora said.

They began to walk quietly towards the lab leaving M behind. By then night had fallen and first stars began to twinkle in the sky. After what felt like an eternity, but must have been only fifteen minutes they reached the lab. They walked past it but instead of taking the route that Nor ahad taken the first day with the scouts she ducked into an alleyway on the left and began to lead R through a short maze of alleys until they reached a stadium.

Julie and Perry used to sneak out there until that day. After what happened to Perry’s father he refused to set a foot outside, unless it was for scouting duty, so Julie had convinced Nora to join her whenever she just needed to get away from everything and take a breather. The place was beautiful during the day, but in the darkness of the night it was eerie.

R still hadn’t let go of her hand, and right at that moment Nora appreciated it. She finally took notice of how warm his hand felt in hers. It gave her even more hope about her crazy plan. Allowing herself to feel positive about everything for the first time that day, she gave his hand a light squeeze, unsure whether to comfort him or herself. She just hoped that Julie would be as understanding about everything as R’s friend had been. She really hoped she would, as now there was proof that R wasn’t an anomaly, that there were more corpses like him, corpses who could be cured. Corpses who craved to be cured.

*

While Nora and R were sneaking their way into the base M returned into the airport only to find an utter mayhem. Or rather corpse equivalent of mayhem. Not that they could cause much damage unless crazed by hunger. It was more of a scene, a spectacle. Right in the middle of the area, exactly where he had confronted R and his new friend, was an aggressive gathering going on. When he got closer he noticed the boneys had surrounded the corpses in a threatening circle. One of the boneys upon noticing M approached him. M stood frozen in his spot. He hadn’t alerted R earlier because the situation was too tense, but he’d noticed that R wasn’t exactly one of them anymore. There was a change about him that M couldn’t quite pin point. But now under the boney’s scrutinizing gaze and sniffing he realized what it was. R had reverted. He had become one of the living again. He could tell it from the confused snarl of the boney. He could smell the life on M when the man was obviously not alive at all.

With each sniff the boney got angrier and angrier but M stood his ground. He wasn’t going to let some no good hopeless boney bully him. Unfortunately, M miscalculated, as the boney was much smarter than he realized. R was far too self aware of his situation. It had always made him stand out among all the other corpses. It had always rubbed the boneys the wrong way. And the past few days weren’t any different. He had acted even weirder than before. Clearly the boneys had enough brain cells left to put two and two together. The new corpse woman not being seen anywhere after the horde had returned from their hunt, R shuffling about collecting canned food, and now this alive smell wafting through the airport tainting the air they smelled.

The boney hissed a warning to M and giving a sign to the other boneys left him and the other corpses there. They were going to hunt down the real source of the problem.

M had to find a way to warn R. To his delight, he wasn’t the only one who had become more aware of the possibility of a change, the woman hadn’t only triggered soemthing in R but begun a straight up cascade of awareness among the corpses. To his best ability he began to gather other corpses, they had limited amount of time to help R.

*

“Jules!” Nora whisper shouted up at the balcony. She knew the other woman was a heavy sleeper and decided to try throwing pebbles instead. Though she doubted that would help anything. She hoped none of the night patrol guys would notice them.

Three pebbles later Nora could hear cursing, “What the fuck! I swear Per if you’re trying to shatter my windows instead of just texting-” Julie stopped on her tracks when she got to the balcony and instead of Perry found Nora and R standing down there.

“Nora?!”

“Hey,” Nora greeted her friend awkwardly.

“Nora, is that you?” Julie asked, dumbfounded. She’d thought her friend had died.

“Yeah. Can you please let us in before the night patrol sees us?”

“Us?” Julie asked, getting more and more confused with every passing second.

“Come on Jules, just let us in, I’ll explain everything later.”

Julie rushed back in and five minutes later Nora heard the front door open with a click. However, before she could enter Julie pulled her into a hug.

“Oh my god! I thought you’d died. Where have you been? Are you alright?”

Nora hugged her back, “Yeah, I’m fine. But please let us in, I didn’t exactly get checked at the main entrance and don’t want them to notice R.”

Julie furrowed her brows in unsaid question but let her finally step in.

“Come on, R.” Nora beckoned him to follow her.

As soon as R entered inside and took his hood off, Julie’s smile fell. “He- He’s a- Nora, you¨ve brought a corpse! What were you thinking!”

Before Julie could even begin to scramble to get a weapon Nora intervened. “Hey, hey, hey, calm down, Jules. He’s not dangerous, he saved my life out there. He’s been keeping me safe for the past few days. Him and his friend helped me get back here too.”

“His friend? Is he here too?” Julie asked, alarmed.

“No, I only brought R, because I think he might help us find a cure.”

Hearing Nora mention the cure Julie reluctantly let her explain everything from the beginning.

“But why would you bring him here, Nora?” Julie exclaimed, “The people here are not like you or I. If they see him he’ll get killed, do you understand that?”

Nora didn’t reply, instead she and R stood in front of Julie like two children being scolded by their mother.

“Besides what proof is there that they are actually changing. For all I know you could be infected too and it’s only a matter of time before you attack me.”

Julie’s claim was so outlandish to Nora that she didn’t even feel offended, it just sounded idiotic to her. “Right Grigio, I would tell such a long winded story to you just to attack you in the end. I can assure you they are changing, just touch him. He’s warm. What corpse has ever been this warm?”

Julie held her gaze for a moment before finally caving in and reaching out to R to hold her outstretched hand. It was warm indeed.

“So what are we gonna do now?” Nora asked, gaining a worried glance from R. Unfortunately, in all honesty, Nora hadn’t really planned out this far.

“Depends on why did you come here,” Julie sighed, letting go of R’s hand.

“To. Show. Everyone,” R replied, sparing Nora the brain work.

“Show them what?” Julie asked, taken aback at hearing the corpse talk.

“That.We. Can. Change.”

Julie rolled her eyes in frustration, “No one here is ever gonna buy that. Not that we could even get you close enough to tell them,” she turned to face Nora, “As soon as they saw him they would blow his head to bits.”

Nora nodded her head, an unamused frown on her face.

Suddenly, Julie turned back to R, “Wait, a minute. Did you say we?.” Then she turned back to Nora, “You mentioned his friend, right. The one who helped you get out of there?”

Nora and R nodded their heads in unison.

“We. Are. More. Conscious. Than. You’d. Think. And. Now. Nora. Has. Triggered. Something.” R explained remembering how the corpses had been at the airport. Now that he thought about it he couldn’t just chalk it up to them being sated enough to not be bothered to hunt with excitement.

“We. Are. Even. Sleeping. And. Dreaming.” R exaggerated a little to make his experience seem universal to them. Although, unbeknownst to him it was true.

“That’s kind of a big deal,” Julie agreed.

Although, it was new information to Nora, she didn’t say anything as she could feel how Julie was finally getting on board.

“We have to move fast,” Julie continued.

“What do you mean?” Nora asked.

“There was some sort of emergency alert earlier. They have been on the edge since the clinic incidence. If there truly is a cure, we can’t wait until the troops take out even more corpses that could’ve been saved. We have to go to my Dad!”

Nora protested, “No, that’s a very bad idea.”

“Nora, he was a reasonable guy once.”

“Ohh, no, no, I think you are confused. It was your mom that was the reasonable one. It was your Dad that grounded you for a year for stealing Peach Schnapps. Are you serious? It’s your Dad that likes to shoot corpses in the head.”

“What other choice do we have, Nora?” Julie sighed. “We would still have to get him through the city, someone would definitely see you. Besides, Nora, you’re not in the clear either. They might even shoot _you_ in the head without hesitation. Only one who would take a second before doing that is Dad, cause he’s known you for so long.”

Nora didn’t have a answer to that. Julie was right.

“We could fix him up,” she suggested in the end.

“What?” Julie asked.

“While we were hiding in my old home I tried putting make up on him. With proper make up we could make him look lively enough to move him across the city to your Dad.”

Julie turned to look at R and noted how with a proper scrub down he would merely look like a heavily anemic man. It would be easy to work some magic with make up. “Yeah, yeah we could. We could put on a little bit of foundation, may be a little blush.”

“A lot of blush,” Nora corrected her, as R grew more and more alarmed. That one time with Nora had been more than enough for a life time for him.

“No way.”

“Yeah way,” the women chimed in unison ignoring him.

They immediately set to work. Nora dug out every bit of make up she had stashed around for a special occasion, while Julie went to find fresh set of clothes for R. After quite a while of showering and putting on make up R found himself in front of a mirror again. This time he had his hair down looking striking against his “new skin”, and a red hoodie to bring out the blush on his cheeks. He could tell he looked strange yet he somehow liked it. It felt good to look like a living breathing human again.

“Hold up-” Julie began.

“He looks hot,” Nora finished with a knowing smile.

R looked down suddenly feeling shy. When was the last time he’d even thought about experiencing that?

After loading some guns for their safety, as pogo sticks weren’t very effective with the troops, Julie set out with Nora and R to find her father. Due to the emergency alerts, the streets were mostly empty and it didn’t take them long to find the camp where her father was. The trio tried to look as inconspicuous as possible, to their relief everyone was so busy preparing for whatever had them in high alert that hardly anyone paid them any mind.

Hardly anyone, but Perry.

As Julie warned them about her father, mostly R, who looked terrified by the bunches of hostile looking people around him, she got stopped by her boyfriend.

“Excuse me, where are you guys headed?” Perry tried to take a proper look and upon seeing Nora turned to look at Julie accusingly. Ever since Nora had gone missing Perry had been on entrance duty, just to make sure if Nora returned he could be there and not some trigger happy trooper who’d blow her brains to bits. No way, Nora had gotten in from the main entrance, she had to know about the secret entrance. Perry couldn’t believe Julie could be so irresponsible. Nora could be infected.

“To see my Dad, Per.”

“Jules, you know I can’t let you in. Specially Nora, has she even gotten tested? And what about him?” Per pointed at R. You know we are already on high alert here. This will just complicate things further.”

“Why what’s going on?” Julie tried to distract him to no avail.

“It’s classified.”

“All right, well, we have our own classified business, Perry.” Nora interjected.

Perry hesitated a little but let them pass through. Given how long Nora was missing, had she been infected she wouldn’t have managed to sound as annoyed. Besides Perry really didn’t want to piss of Julie even further than what he already had. Since the failed scouting she had been very angry at him for not just bailing when Nora had first alerted them, and thus putting Nora’s life into jeopardy.

Still he tried one last time, “Hey!” he stopped R.

“Hey,” R mumbled stiffly. _Say something human, say something human_ , R thought to himself before blurting out “How are you?” Like an utter moron.

“He’s just fine,” Nora huffed, still a little miffed by Perry, and dragged R away.

“Okay guys, we’re here” Julie said when she noticed her father. Not really waiting for them to follow her she walked ahead, trying to get her Dad’s attention.

“Hey Dad!”

“What are you doing here?” Colonel Grigio asked, irritated at seeing his daughter there.

“What’s going one? What’s all this?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s not good. We’ve been getting reports there are sizeable packs of skeletons and corpses coming toward us. We don’t know why, but if they’re here to attack there’s nothing we can do about it. Too many of them, too few of us. So I want you to get home, lock down the house. I have the gun there, the Ruger SR-”

“This?” Julie held up the gun, “Yeah, okay. Look, we need to talk.”

Colonel Grigio tried to break away, but Julie grabbed his arm and pulled him aside.

“Dad, this is gonna sound really crazy but I think the corpses are coming back to life.”

Colonel Grigio stared at his daughter for a moment as if she had grown another head, not really noticing Nora and R approaching them.

“What are you even talking about?” He finally asked, looking away from his daughter, longing to get back to work. They were too short on troops to waste time on such a useless conversation.

“No Dad, really. They are changing.”

“And how would you know that?”

“Nora-” Julie slipped before realizing how bad of an idea this whole thing was after all. Looking at the sudden change in her father’s face she has to admit that Nora had been right. Her Dad was the unreasonable one of the parents.

“What about Nora?” Colonel Grigio asked, a little less interested in the troops and a little more worried about his daughter. He was aware of the secret entrance, and if Nora had opted to use that one to return, it couldn’t mean anything good. Suddenly a hundred different scenarios of Nora having already infected his daughter flashed through his mind, yet at the same time he felt fatherly concern for Nora. She’d been with them since he’d evacuated her away from the suburbs eight years ago. He had kind of warmed up to her in these eight years, and although Nora would never be quite equal to his own daughter, he still felt fatherly responsibility towards her.

At this point Nora finally made her presence known. “They are capable of change, Mr. Grigio.”

If Colonel Grigio was surprised then he had managed to hide it well.

“Have you been tested?”

“I’m not infected,” Nora insisted.

“How would I know that?”

“We don’t have time for this, Mr. Grigio. I heard what you said, I think the dead are coming back to life, and if truly so, then we can’t just shoot them up.”

Colonel Grigio didn’t even know where to start with this absurdity, “You think they are curing themselves?”

“I’ve seen it. It’s really happening!” Nora stomped her foot like a petulant child, she wished she had thought about taking a photo or keeping log or done anything, anything at all to have physical proof of the changes she had seen happen in R, or his friend.

“You know what is happening Nora? What is happening is that you have gotten infected and you must be the reason why those corpses and skeletons have suddenly dared to even approach the base. And I ought to shoot you right here and now for putting us all into danger over your stupid cure fantasies. They’re not curing themselves, we are their food source. They are not becoming vegan, they eat brains. Your mother’s and your father’s included.”

Before Nora could say or do anything R came to her defense. “Uhh. Hi Mr. Grigio,” he started by addressing Colonel Grigio the way he had heard Nora do.

“Who are you?” Colonel Grigio looked him up and down trying to assess how much of a threat this new guy was, as if he didn’t have enough in his hands with the skeletons and Nora.

“This is R. He saved me when I was out there and he helped me get back home unscathed. I have been with him these past days, and I have seen him change.”

“So he’s a corpse?”

“Yeah, but he’s changing. He has hobbies, he is just like us!” Nora said, “He can feel and think just like us. And not just him, they’re all changing. I saw his friend, he helped us get here too. They’re not mindless monster that we thought they are.”

Without a word Colonel Grigio drew his gun at R. “No they’re not like us, he is a mindless monster, and you are one too. First I’ll shoot him and then I’ll deal with you, Nora.”

At this point Julie knew trying to reason with her Dad would be useless. In turn she drew her gun at her Dad. “Nora, R, run!”

Using the distraction Nora grabbed R’s hand and they began to run away from the camp.

“You’re not going to shoot me,” Colonel Grigio challenged his daughter.

“I totally am, Dad” Julie said, unable to convince even herself, however.

Although Julie had managed to give them a head start it wasn’t enough as Perry had observed them from distance and when he noticed Nora and the mysterious guy running for their lives, he took a few of the troops and chased after them.

*

“Fuck! That didn’t go well at all! What do we do now?” Nora began to panic as they ran with Perry and the other men chased after them.

Realizing this could be easily the last few moments of his “life” R squeezed Nora’s hand as tightly as he could and through labored breaths begged her, “No matter what we stay together. Stay together, promise.”

“I promise,” Nora squeezed his hand back and tried to gain control of herself. They had o keep running as long as they could. She hoped they could outrun Perry and his men long enough for Julie to figure something out.

After a while of running they managed to shake off Perry and his men, so they stopped to take a breather and figure out what to do next.

“I need to warn my friends.”

“We need to go back to the-”

“Airport, yeah.”

“Fine,” Nora agreed, still trying to catch her breath.

To their misfortune Perry had figured out they’d try to use the secret entrance, so by the time they got there it was too late. As soon as Perry noticed them he blared the alarms.

“Shit! Get on the subway!” Nora pulled R into another direction. She hoped there would be a way out in the abandoned subway.

They trodded along the subway as fast as they could hoping to warn the other corpses in time.

When they got to the other end of the subway, they were welcomed by a pleasant sight. M was approaching them from the other end with a group of corpses. He looked delighted to see them. Nora and R picked up their pace until they were standing face to face with M.

“R.... Nora...”

“Hi,” Nora smiled, she felt tears prickling her eyes, as the adrenaline rush began to get her.

“Ready, for a fight?”

“Yeah,” R said, before realizing that they hadn’t been even warned yet, “Wait. What. Fight?”

“The.... Boneys.... Looking... For.... You.... Angry.... That.... You.... Changed....”

R turned to Nora looking worried, “Soldiers. Coming. Boneys. Closing. In.”

On cue with his statement a feral howl pierced through the room. Everyone looked up and through the glass dome of the airport they could see the boneys climbing up the glass trying to find an entrance.

“Get.... Out.... Of.... Here....” M said, glancing at Nora. Even though R wasn’t in the green anymore with the boneys, he could still “reason” with them, but if they got to Nora there was no saving here.

“Keep. Them. Out,” R pleaded to his friend.

“We.... Will....” M assured him. “Run.”

As the boneys began to break the glass, R and Nora began to run again. Despite M and other corpses’ best effort a few boneys managed to come after them. While R lead the way, Nora used her free hand to shoot any and every boney that got too close to them. They ran through the stadium, the airport and would have almost made it to the parking lot when they heard the sound of soldiers, forcing them to change directions into a part of the airport that even R wasn’t familiar with.

In spite of their best efforts Nora and R couldn’t shake off the boneys and now they even had some soldiers chasing them. Although some of them got occupied trying to get rid of the boneys there were far too many of both parties to keep either party fully distracted. As they ran from the soldiers another pair of boneys ambushed them from the side managing to separate them.

The one that had attacked Nora, managed to also knock the gun out of her hands, leaving her to struggle against it. R was a little more lucky as his strength still matched that of corpses and boneys. He managed to fight off the boney and knock him into the empty subway tracks. The fall wasn’t high at all, but the force with which he had pushed it off of him was enough to injure it to death. R scrambled to find Nora’s gun but realizing it would take too much time he grabbed a fire extinguisher from a nearby wall and knocked off the boney with it.

“Thank you,” Nora said as she grabbed his hand to get up.

They had gotten rid of the boneys but lost even more of the head start against the soldiers. The heavy footfalls sounded like a hundred galloping horses in the empty airport. Since the coprses had joined the forces it had allowed Perry to take more men than necessary to chase after Nora and R.

*

“We see corpses fighting skeletons, Sir,” one of the soldiers reported back to Colonel Grigio, earning him a “See, I told you so” eye roll from his daughter, whom he hadn’t managed to shake off after she’d allowed Nora and that corpse to escape.

One by one various soldiers agreed on seeing the same thing happen. So the corpses weren’t attacking with the skeletons. The corpses were fighting alongside humans.

“Sorry, can you repeat that?” Colonel Grigio asked, jsut to make sure he wasn’t going crazy.

“Copy that, we’re seeing corpses fighting skeletons, Sir.”

*

The soldiers kept getting closer and closer, and with each step R and Nora got more lost. They had no idea where they were heading anymore. Suddenly, they came into another open area in the airport only to face a whole swarm of skeletons. Unable to run forward or to go back only place left for them to try was a door on the side. R ran towards it pulling Nora after him. To his horror the door opened to nothingness. There was nothing behind the door. Only a long fall down into an abandoned pool. The boneys began to slowly close in on them.

“It’s over,” Nora said, desperate.

“No. Keep. You. Safe,” R assured her, just like he had days ago in the lab. He looked down then back at her, “It. Will. Be. Okay.”

Before Nora had time to comprehend what he meant, or protest to his idea, R had pulled her into his arms, shielding her and jumped backwards making sure he’d absorb the impact when they hit the water.

Even in air Nora tried to push him off, even though it wouldn’t really make any sense anymore, but R locked his hands making sure Nora was safe and secure. They fell into the pool with a huge splash, and despite having R as a shield, Nora could feel just how strong the impact was. She floated backwards in the water when R’s hands sprawled outwards, but then immediately she swam towards him to pull him out.

Pulling him above the water level Nora tried to drag him out of the pool. “R! R, wake up! Are you alright?”

Unable to pull him, or even herself out of the water Nora instead, leaned him against the side of the pool. “R, please. Please!”

Right when Nora was about to start crying R contracted forward and began to cough.

“You okay?” Nora held on to him to avoid him slipping back under.

R nodded, through his coughs, before finally the water out of his eyes, and standing up as straight as he could on his still wobbly knees, and clothing ten times heavier from all the water.

Relieved to see R alive and conscious, Nora couldn’t hold herself back anymore. Slowly, Nora leaned closer to him and cupping his face, she locked their lips in a kiss. When she pulled away R pulled her back into his arms, this time even closer, bracing his arms around her body, diving in for another kiss as if his life depended on it.

When they broke away for the second time, Nora was greeted by a joyful pair of blue eyes glinting with happiness. The happiness, however, lasted only mere seconds before a bullet just about grazed her, lodging deep into R’s chest.

Unable to bring himself to shoot Nora too, Perry had deliberately missed the shot and hit R in the arm instead of directly in the head.

“I knew I’d seen that creep somewhere. I’d never forget that face when he’d stopped to check out my watch.” Perry barked.

Next to Perry Colonel Grigio stood looking stern and stoic. Nora turned to face them and moved in front of R to keep him shielded from another bullet”Don’t think that will protect him. You are suspected for being infected too. We will shoot you in the head as well, if need be,” Colonel Grigio warned Nora.

Frantic and scared Nora didn’t notice it until Julie stomped next to her father angrily.

“Dad, what the hell! You can’t just shoot them. You heard the soldiers. The corpses are on our side!” Then after a moment of pause to take in what was in front of them she pointed out “Dad, look! He’s bleeding . The corpses don’t bleed!”

Nora looked down at the water, and noticed how a small pool of red began to surround them. She wanted to turn around and make sure R was alright, but didn’t dare to turn her back at the soldiers.

“Dad, you have to listen to me! Please, stop this. I know we’ve lost everybody. I know you lost mom, Perry lost his Dad, Nora lost her parents. But you and me, Perry, Nora, we are all still here. We can fix all this. We can start over. We owe it to them. The corpses need our help.”

As she spoke, Julie crept towards her father and gently nudged his hand away from Nora’s direction. Her heartfelt speech had had the desired effect, making everyone else drop their arms too. This allowed Nora to finally tend to R.

“R, are you okay? R, you’re alive! You’re bleeding. Oh my gosh, you’re bleeding! Does it hurst? Are you in pain? Do you feel faint?” Nora was left a blubbering mess.

“Little,” R managed to reply.

*

_On the one hand getting shot in the chest hurt. Like, a lot. But on the other, it felt good to bleed, to feel pain. To feel love. I wish I could say we cured boneys with love. But really we just straight up killed them all. It sounds kinda messed up, but no one felt too bad about it. They were too far gone to change. It was actually a really good bonding experience for us and the humans. Once we joined forces they didn’t stand a chance. The ones we didn’t kill just wasted away. And the rest of us? Well, we kinda learned how to live again. For a while it seemed like a lot of us forgot what that meant. The humans began to accept us, connect with us, teach us. This was the key to the cure. It was scary at first but, every great thing starts out a little scary. Doesn’t it? This is how it happened. This is how the world was exhumed._

_As for me, It took some time. Mr. Grigio and Perry had a tough time coming to terms with having me around. I guess, it was tough for them to come to terms with their painful pasts. I don’t blame them. Specially, Perry. It’s sometimes hard to look him in the eyes, knowing if Nora hadn’t hit me with those glass bottles I would’ve gobbled him up without a second thought._

_._

_While they learnt to accept get along with us, Nora and Julie worked on a rehabilitation clinic. Nora works there as the head nurse, while Julie deals with the paperwork aspect of it all. It’s a cool thing in all honesty. I work there too. My job is to collect other corpses from outside the, now expanded, base. It’s necessary because as it turns out, my and Nora’s love had effect in a limited radius. Beyond that the corpses and boneys still acted the way they always have. Our clinic specializes in bringing back those corpses, quarantining and re-teaching them how to live until they can be safely assimilated among humans again. The clinic works in conjunction with a lot of new charities and NGOs that popped up after everything. It’s a nice little network for helping us help ourselves to be able to live._

_Marcus, M - he was lucky enough to remember his name, and I are still friends. I wouldn’t say we are best friends anymore. As we re-learnt more emotions, and began to communicate better, we found out there aren’t many things that connect us. But there is an understanding between us. We may not be best buddies anymore, but we will always be good friends. After all, it is hard to express the emotions and feelings we felt while eating someone’s brains to humans. I guess, I could try to befriend more corpses, but having to talk about those days out loud feels awkward. I don’t have to do it with Marcus, because he was there with me._

_Finally, Nora and I. We don’t know yet where this will go. There have been occassional rough patches. I mean, five days of running around leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to dating properly. But three years into our relationship, I still feel my heart skip a beat and butterflies fluttering about in my stomach. I hope I make her feel the same way. If her still kissing me good morning and good night, and calling me silly names starting with R are any indication, I’d say I do make her feel that way. There are still many uncertainties about where future will lead us, but we have kept to our promise of staying together until now. I hope we do so forever._


End file.
